Lethargy and Movies

I generally spend a lot of time reading and listening to audio books while I stitch. I usually average between ten and fourteen books read per month and I enjoy that. However, there have been so many mediocre books in my life lately that I only read five books in February. There were a lot of factors but the biggest is a prevailing blahness.

We all have cycles and mine is one of bravely coping in a cheerful Pollyanna way which can suddenly turn to lethargy and the desire to watch whole seasons of TV shows in quick succession. I still keep stitching and knitting and whatnot but I don't have the patience to read mediocre books. I've run out of books by my longer series authors (Rex Stout primarily) and have a hot yen for history but all the books I think sound good I can't find on audio. Tres frustrating. Time for another Pratchett I guess, though I'm trying to pace myself and not run out of Discworlds any time soon.

So tonight I worked on my Celtic style B (an eventual gift for my nephew Benjamin, well, for his parents really) and watched the recent St. Trinian's remake. I knew the English did a series of St. Trinian's moves in the 1950s but decided it would be a bad idea to watch them. I grew up with St. Trinian's, first reading it when I was about eight years old. And then of course I went to a boarding school and played field hockey which increased my love for the comics.

When I saw they did a remake in 2007 I got it but put off watching it, fearing what they'd done to my beloved comic. Finally broke down and watched it tonight and it was PERFECT! I knew from the opening that they'd done well by old Ronald Searle and I'm so glad the English are still all over the good things in life. They did a second one in 2009 which I'll watch soon. It was the perfect mood lifter too! I've been wanting to do a St. Trinian's embroidery and I think I'll work on the pattern soon.

I found some black thread hiding under another work-in-progress (just a short length which I'd misplaced some days ago) so I did a little more on Felix the Cat, worked on Frida's vines and the Celtic B (picture tomorrow), and framed and shipped out my Roman mosaic piece. It's the first needlework piece that I've sold and you know I'm so proud of it. I'm glad it will get to be seen but also glad it went to a friend.

Home again, home again...

Today was long. Well, okay, last week was long in general and today's eight hour drive was just the tipping point for my body to completely shut down. I have levels of shut down. Sometimes a good complete four or five hour rest followed by a long sleep is enough to get me back to subnormal, but that pre-supposes I'll get more rest the next day, which I don't get if I'm away from home.

The result is that by the end of the week I stop getting any relief from sleep. So the car ride home tends to be punctuated by me taking breaks to start getting drunk bright and early or just generally groaning and being crabby. Or in the case of this drive, insisting on reading aloud from one of my favorite books to my mother for hours on end. One does what one can.

I finally did buckle down and start the vine border on my Frida Kahlo piece. As with most everything about that piece, I am loving the result! There will be three or four different types of vine, different shades of green and brown, but also one that's smooth, one with thorns, etc... I'm doing the smooth one first in deep green with highlights in kelly green satin thread which is producing a wonderful effect.

It was a really nice beach week, in any case. We had a couple super beautiful days with perfect weather, I got a few good pictures, found a four record set of Baroque music and La Traviata record set for fifty cents each (both look like they were never played), and added a pretty tea cup to my collection.

My replacement Wacom tablet pen arrived so I've gotten straight to work on smoothing out some of my embroidery patterns and have begun making the PDF files for the patterns that I'll sell in Hardcore StitchCorps when it opens on Etsy.

I may spend the next two days lying still and sleeping, but one thing I learned very quickly into my disability was that it's always worth it to push yourself farther than you should. Not that you should do it for weeks and months on end, but you should as often as you can. Mental health is more important than physical health, after all.

Frida as Herself

Well the figure of Frida in my piece is pretty much done (just a couple tiny details to do which will only take a couple minutes). I'm really pleased with how she's turned out. At first I thought I'd overdone it, made her clothes too crazy and clashing but it is not supposed to be a rendition of a photograph, after all. It is supposed to be more like a painting. Her paintings are colorful and bright and full full full.

So in those terms I think she's turned out beautifully. I struggled for a few days with how to do her skirt and was very pleased with myself for the idea that finally came. Doing the outline in heavy chain stitch (well, medium heavy really) relates the heft of the fabric and stands out well from the other clothes. The double herring bone works well for filling the space but still showing that the background is white. Finding good stitches for the colored parts proved harder than I'd expected.

It is nice to take my time with a piece instead of feverishly rushing through it as I do with cross-stitch and blackwork. Free embroidery (is this a clear term? since cross-stitch and blackwork are types of embroidery the classification seems necessary) is languid, soft, free wheeling across the fabric like kids doing cartwheels on summer evenings. It is the hippie sibling of the penned-in housewife that is cross-stitch and the upright, English Lady that is blackwork. I love them all, but there's more excitement working on blank fabric without a chart, without clear lines to follow. It is a balm to the soul.

I am happy today. It is very warm, mid to high 40s. I went out in a tank top and skirt and was still too hot in the sun. There are six blossoms sprouting out on my dwarf lemon tree and I can't wait to see them bloom. I made shepherd's pie with leftover chili last night and it turned out really well. I don't know of any American recipes for using leftovers, all the ones I know are English or Mexican or other foreign things (shepherd's pie, chilaquiles, bubble and squeak...). Americans just serve the same food again making a lot of people have an irrational dislike of leftovers (I've known people who refuse to eat leftovers). My brother is coming on Sunday and staying for about a week to help work on the house my mother just bought. I haven't seen him since early October and I've missed him a lot lately.

Here's to spring weather (love spring, hate summer), lemon tree blossoms, good food, and the expectation of good drink (once February starts I'm buying a bottle of single malt Scotch).

Some color for Friday

Progress on Frida trudges along. I took a break to knit a super adorable baby hat since I'm debating how much painting of Frida's background I'll need to do. I decided to definitely paint some background color on the background (which will be all birds and flowers and vines) so now what I need to decide is whether or not to paint on the skirt. The skirt will be black with a few stripes of color.

I think maybe I'll skip painting that though. I like the idea of leaving the background of her face and shawl and skirt white in contrast to a richly and lushly colored background. I almost regret completely filling most of her shirt but I really wanted those thin horizontal stripes to mimic traditional central American weaving. I need to re-check out some embroidery books so I can get instructions for all the pretty stitches and such for the skirt.

While I was deciding my next steps I took a break to do some knitting. I used this pattern from Knitty to make an absolutely adorable baby hat. I have nine going on ten nieces and nephews. My oldest brother has six children, my next brother has two (the second just born about a week ago), and my sister has one son and is due with a daughter at the end of April. My sister's boy is the only one I really know and who knows me. He is the sweetest toddler I've ever met and they're all moving down here to my city in a month or so (very exciting!). Only two out of the current nine kids are girls (both belonging to my oldest brother who lives in Missouri and who I may never see again, sadly) so it will be nice to have a niece that I get to see more.

I also have knitting orders from a friend which include a number of hats for her grandchildren so I've got bright kids colors and fun patterns on the brain.

Girly Progress

You know, if I had a store of miscellaneous awesome crap I would called it Girly Progress. I've never been seen as a very girly girl, and many strangers thought I was a boy for a big portion of my childhood. However, I've always been simultaneously a complete girly girl and a super tomboy. I think that's good, personally. I like both worlds.

Since I got sick though I have gradually lost almost all those boyish pleasures. It's all knitting, embroidery, baking, and Japanese dolls. No more climbing and hiking, no more cartwheels and tipsy swagger home. My first car was a 1988 Ford Ranger, completely beat-up and run down, but oh so perfect. Now I drive a 1992 (or closeby) Pontiac GrandAm. That is pretty much the ultimate metaphor for the changes that have overtaken me.

The best defense is to think wholeheartedly about everyone else in the world. I try to feed my mom at least once a week, pack up soups and such for her to take for lunch (she works twelve and fourteen hour days regularly). I knit and sew and bake for my nephew. I scrape whatever good news and glad tidings I can find in my life and make that the focus on my conversation with my dad and siblings.

And then I decide to undertake a large-scale embroidery project for my high school best friend with whom I haven't been in regular communication for about six years. I still love her so much, and I miss all those friends. All these people who suck at keeping in touch and peeled off rapidly when I got sick. I was the glue, the one who called and wrote and made the effort. Then I couldn't make the effort anymore and no one else picked up the slack.

Sometimes I am so angry about it, so deeply hurt, so stubbornly clinging to the fact that it's their responsibility to remember me even while I dream and pine for them. I am trying to get over it. I am trying to force myself back upon them but it feels so much like begging. Begging to be remembered, to be treated like a normal friend again and not some scary "There but for the grace of God go I..." example for everyone my age.

So here I am. Toiling over projects that I may never work up the courage to give away. It is a way to cope. It is generally healthy for me. Plus, it certainly yields some beautiful work.

Flowers Fronds and Frida

I've finally started on my Frida Kahlo embroidery piece. Got the main bit transferred and I'll just be filling in the background with birds and flowers and vines and such (no monkeys, I hate monkeys).

It's a bit nerve-wracking since I don't have a clear idea of how I'll be filling in the skirt and shawl. It's embroidery though, it's allowed to be loose and free and lovely. It is fairly large as well, larger than I had at first envisioned, but it probably needs to be about this size in order for the face not to look muddled.

Had a nice interlude with my mom today. We ate the soup I made when I was sick (and didn't eat then because my sense of taste was still wonky) and watched an episode of Bones (her fave rave show). Now that my appetite is mostly back I want something completely unhealthy to eat but easy to make.