Away

Please excuse the absence. I am on my week of beach-vacation!

Madre and I are the type who like the beach best when no one else is around and when the weather isn't massively hot.

I will hopefully post a proper entry tonight.

Books and soccer...

Sometimes I wonder about the world. I wonder how a badly written book can become a bestseller based on "oh the author understands emotion." When I say badly written, I mean it. Sloppy writing, unrealistic situations, inability to follow the basic "don't tell, show" rule, flat characters, no real ending, no real tension...

This makes no sense to me. I understand that some people don't care about the quality of writing, but those same people will defend the writing. I would just admit I didn't care about the writing but how the book made me feel, rather than villainizing people who DO care about the writing.

Oh well. Life goes on, and all that. I've finished my Liverpool FC piece and I quite like it! I would have started my Arsenal crest already but I was lacking the right color outline thread. I would have just worked around that yesterday, but I was feeling lazy. I'll probably start today.

Another break from the napkin...

I've gotten a little more done on the napkin since my last picture but felt like it was a good time to start another break project.

So I've finally started on my Liverpool FC crest pattern. It's turning out very well. I was a little concerned about the colors running together too much but once you get a big block done they're quite distinct (the darkest is much redder in person). 

It shouldn't take too much longer to finish, then I'll get another chunk of the napkin done, then I'll stitch my Arsenal crest.

My dad is coming down tomorrow, so there will be a bit of a slow down in stitching. Then on Saturday it's off to the beach!

lots of little stitches

Well I'm about a third of the way through my chintz napkin! It's going much faster than I'd thought it would, which is generally the way with all of my larger projects.

I think as my 'break' project, for when I get tired of no frame and tiny stitches, I'll finally stitch my Liverpool pattern. I'm going to do it on 22 ct. Aida though, so it goes more quickly and won't use up so much thread. 

In a bit over a week I'll be at the beach with Madre for our timeshare week. Lately I've been so tired and run down and anti-social that it can't come too soon. It will be a relief to get away from this apartment and this city.

Living in Sin

Well I finished my Living in Sin pattern. Creating the border was so frustrating and annoying that I sort of gave up once it was at the not-horrible stage, but I wish I'd gone on and simplified it.

It's for sale in my Etsy shop and actually comes with both the border I stitched and the simplified (and much more symmetrical!) pattern.

I've been so tired and rundown that minor errands and chores feel oppressive. I think I need a good month alone, though even that probably wouldn't help. I shall hope it is just a melancholy phase brought on from having no room for new tea cups.

books and stitchery

Witches and witchery, spinsters and stitchery...

I'm mostly done with my 'easy' project, which gave me a break from the chintz napkin. The entire border is done and the text (which will say Living in Sin) won't take long. I'm thinking I'll take up the napkin again for a bit though.

Today I finished off all of the Elizabeth Gaskell book My Lady Ludlow. It was good, though not my favorite of Gaskell's books. Before that I finished The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer, which was wonderful! 

Sadly the book I'm reading now, Ten Days in a Mad-house by Nellie Bly, is read really badly. The reader, Laural Merlington, has awkward pacing, random overly theatrical narration, HORRIBLE accents, but mostly very mechanical sounding narration. Almost like a really advanced text-to-speech computer reader. I just don't understand how such a bad reader can get work, or what publisher thought this person was good. The attempts at accents alone make me cringe.

It's a short book though, so I'm trying to muddle through the awful reading.

blinding progress

I am slightly kicking myself for deciding that doing a chintz napkin to match the chintz cup was a good idea. This is SUCH a frustrating pattern, because of all the tiny bits of one color spread out in a way that makes it difficult to keep at all organized.

It is going well though and it will be amazingly gorgeous when I'm finished. That's some consolation.

I've been posting some older patterns in my Etsy shop. You can now find the Moody Bastarditis pattern, Not Dumb Luck, Dumb Skill, Reality Continues to Ruin My Life, Never Bored When I Am Present, and Captain Haddock (though those last two are quite new, of course).

The shop has been more successful than I ever dreamed and it makes me really happy that other people actually want to stitch my patterns. I'm going to start work on a "Living in Sin" pattern with a super traditional border. It will give me something less frustrating to work on when I get sick of the chintz napkin.

Oh, if anyone would like the pattern for the Royal Winton Queen Anne chintz, just let me know and I'll send it to you. It's easy enough to make yourself but is tedious and annoying.