Stitch With Me

Since we’ve been going on 8 days without any sun shine, I decided to go ahead and photograph my newest finish with crappy in door light and be done with it!

I know it is probably wrong to whine about the weather when half the county is getting hammered with unprecedented amounts of snow but I am DONE.  I’m tired of it being cold.  I’m tired of it being wet.  I’m tired of the snow and the ice and the cold.  Have I told you I’m tired of being cold?

Anyway.  I kind of went off there for a moment.

I stitched this stunning piece for Marianne at NewNeedlepoint.

It is a lovely bargello piece.  Marianne picked the colors and threads and I stitched it on (I think) 14hpi canvas.  As soon as Marianne gets settled after her recent move, I’ll send it back to her for finishing as one of her samples.

I’d never done (except as part of a sampler once) any bargello.  It was fun.  Very zen like.  Not hard at all. And the colors Marianne picked were stunning!  I think this would make a lovely book cover for an address book, or calendar (I know, I’m totally inconsistent.  I love technology but I carry my calender in my purse and write my appointments in by hand.) Or it’s a lovely size for a sofa pillow.  I don’t know what Marianne’s got in mind but it’s got a lot of possibilities.

If you’ve not ever tried any bargello, look at what Marianne can set you up with.  There are some great pieces there!

I’ve been following the devastation that’s going on in Haiti.  It is simply heartbreaking.

Jacob lost a tooth this week.  The Tooth Fairy gave him two dollars for it.  (Isn’t inflation awful, I think I got a quarter for a tooth when I was a kid.)

This morning as Jacob left for school, he gave us one of his precious dollars and told us to give it to the poor people who were hurt by the earthquake and who need our help.  It was a make your heart hurt moment on so many different levels.

This really is a needlework related post.

Many designers have their needlepoint canvases painted off-shore, specifically in Haiti.  So that canvas you are currently working on?  Could have come from Haiti.

They are going to require millions of dollars to recover.

David and I are going to send a check.  And we’ll add an extra dollar to it for Jacob’s contribution.

If you are interested in donating, there are lots of organizations who could use help.  These are just a few:

Doctor’s Without Borders

Compassion

The American Red Cross

After much reflection, and studying the instructions, color schemes and schematic, I’ve decided not to undertake the ANG Stitch of the Monthy Mystery Project right now.

My concerns are many.

I don’t have a local store anymore.  My local store closed a year ago, and while it wasn’t a great store, it did have promise.  I think the woman who owned it thought it would be FUN! and EASY! with a lot of time spent sitting around stitching and talking.  When it turned out to be, you know, like actual work, she wasn’t as enamored of it anymore.  So I was going to have to go with the thread colors as it was designed, or the thread colors picked by someone on the Internet Committee or something someone at one of the stores I mail order with picked for me.  One of the things I like about projects, is the colors I am working with.  So that was going to be a problem.

Having to draw, and count or baste, the schematic on the canvas was going to be a problem for me.  I always have problems when I have to count; I want to count the holes and I know I’m suppose to count the threads!

I am a very visual person.  If I can’t actually see it, I have a tough time imagining it.  I was having a tough time wrapping my mind around stitching portions of a piece without knowing how it’s going to fit in with the whole project.

While I think I could overcome all of these problems, I decided it would be stressful for me.  And that’s the complete opposite of the way I want to feel when I’m stitching.

So, I’ve decided to pass on this one for right now.  When it’s completed in December 2010, and I can see the completed piece and all the instructions, I might decide to undertake it.  But right now, my life is stressful enough without adding to it with my stitching.

Today my husband and have been married 20 years.

On the one hand I think “20 years!  Damn that’s a long time!”

On the other hand, I think, “It can’t possibly be 20 years,” it seems like yesterday that we were dating.

Or are those just two ways of saying the same thing?

I was talking to a friend about our upcoming anniversary and she asked, “have they all been mostly happy years?”  I thought for a moment and honestly answered yes.

We’ve had some tough times in the past.  We are currently going through a rough spot in our lives.  We’ve always gotten through them together and I have no reason to believe this will be any different.

Happy 20th Anniversary, Honey!  Here’s looking forward to the next twenty!

This is what I worked on this Fall.

Ain’t she lovely!

I promised the marvelously talented Gail Hendrix I wouldn’t talk about it until she was ready for me to, so I was unusually quiet this fall.

The plaid was done in Silk & Ivory (one of my favorite threads),  The jewels and the braid were done in Kreinki Braid, Fyre Werks and Silk Lame Braid.  There’s a lot of sparkle and shine there that pictures can’t adequately capture.

This is going to be on display at the TNNA Market in Long Beach, California.

I wish I could go and see all this great stuff in person!