Opera Pattern for sale, DMC wrong side

You may remember my awesome opera quote pattern (from Terry Pratchett's Maskerade). Well, the pattern is now for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Honestly if I were forced at gun point to choose a favorite Discworld book, it might be Maskerade. It's just... so accurate in its depiction of opera and theatre people. Also I love the witches and the Agnes vs Perdita back and forth.

I thought you might like to see the wrong side of the DMC color project. It looks really neat, I think. I've left longer tails when I end a square (bind off? weave in?) so that if a lower square loosens the last stitch of the square above it I have enough thread to grip to pull it tight. That's an awkward sentence and description, but it's relevant for anyone contemplating a similar project.

apologies for absence

I did finally finished my opera blackwork piece (and all ink black!) and I know what project I'm doing next. The opera piece was hard to finish because of border difficulties. Just designing opera motifs that weren't too large was a challenge and I didn't think there was enough room to do a border on the top. I like my solution though and I love my champagne glasses and especially that skull! Ever tried to design a small blackwork skull? It's damned hard!

It's also apartment inspection time (I live in subsidized housing) so I've been busy cleaning as much as I can. Plus today was my mom's birthday. My sister and the fat baby came over and we had tea and lunch and gave my mom her presents. I held Miss Evie for a while and bounced her around, being rewarded with some giggles and smiles. She's in a fussy stage though and my poor cat spent the whole time terrified under the couch and now won't deign to look at me.

Soccer and Tequila

Yesterday was a great soccer day! There was a West Virginia men's soccer tournament and Madre and I went to one game. I haven't seen a soccer game in person in about seven years, since I was at college. This happened to be a pretty good game, though one team was lazy and scattered and only had a few players who seemed to really love the game. They also had a couple players who were fouling really badly and I hate seeing that.

Then at 9 pm we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant to watch the Gold Cup final. This is the tournament for the teams in north and central America and the Caribbean. Last Gold Cup, 2009, Mexico beat us 5-0 which is really embarrassing. Last night was absolutely brilliant though. First off, we got to watch with other fans who were just as loud as me, and second I got a bit drunk which I haven't done for about a year. I haven't even just had one drink is a few months. 

So Mexico came out pushing really hard, had three shots on goal really soon and then the US came out of nowhere and scored off a corner. Then they scored again! It was insane! They also subbed someone in around like minute 10, which is just another example of Bob Bradley being a twat (there are many such examples). Mexico tied it up before the half with some great goals. Then after the half the US came back disorganized and not pushing nearly hard enough. Mexico scored twice more, one of  which was just one of the more beautiful goals I've seen in a long time. It was literally a perfect game. Very few fouls, great goals, good offensive playing. Fabulous.

Started a new blackwork project using a quote from the Terry Pratchett book Maskerade (which is about opera). I happen to love opera, so it's one of my favorite Pratchett books. The quote is long so I'm doing it in a very small font which is one square wide and a maximum of four high. I'm about halfway done with the text and it's turning out better than I'd hoped.