Women Who Don't Help Other Women

New pattern up in the store! The quote is from Madeleine Albright, the first women to become US Secretary of State. I had a really random crush on her in middle school, because she's awesome. Now I live in fear that she didn't actually say this. Sigh.

I finished it over the weekend, but have found you never want to post something new on the weekend. So many people do so much internetting at work now. I've never had a job where that was really an option, so it still seems weird to me.

Just so there’s no nonsense later, when I say women I mean anyone who identifies as a women. And also, those of us who are viewed as women but don’t consider it a part of our identity. I’ve never felt particularly connected to either gender, but I know what I’m seen as, and feminism is the most important issue in my life. 

My niece is very into saying "So and so is a woman, so and so is a man" right not. The last time I said I didn't think that was very important, and the main thing is that I'm just me. She gave me a very skeptical look, but I can't resist. Of course she's a toddler and toddlers tend to want to classify the world and give it lots of order, but I feel it's my job to throw some anarchy in there. I am the youngest aunt, after all.

Soon I'll be starting a Minecraft pattern. I don't play it, but I know what the kids like.

Dreams and Nightmares

I finished this piece last night. It got messier in the last couple of sentences because I was getting upset and had a hard time wording what I wanted to express.

This is a piece that will grow. I'll do other installments in different sizes of hoop, and different colors. I might add song lyrics sometimes. I don't know.

It was hard to get through at the end. I had to speed through my new favorite show, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. It's Australian, set in the 1920s, based on a recent book series. It is absolutely perfect. I love Miss Fisher in every way and the chief inspector is so handsome (though less so when not done up in 20s style).

Today it's back to the Women piece, and the floral details, which is pretty mindless. I definitely need a little of that.

Stitch away the pain

In my past there's a relationship that still haunts me. It's been years, but I dream about her so much still. Sometimes dream-her hates me, and sometimes they're happy dreams.

Having one upsets my life in so many ways (and makes me try to avoid sleep like the plague). Ignoring them hasn't helped, so this is what I'm trying now. This part isn't complete yet. I'll do each dream or thought in a different color, using different sizes of embroidery hoop. Fingers crossed. I can never remove her from my daytime thoughts, and I wouldn't want to, but the dreams are something else.

So yeah, that's what I'm working on now, as well as my shop pattern for "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." I've completed the text on it, but things keep stealing my attention because I can start the little pieces of decor. Plus I've got some secret-knitting I need to finish up, and you know how that goes.

All Girls Together

Here’s a pattern for you all! I’m doing this quote for a pattern that will be in my shop as well, but the girls dancing image is from a 1900 publication and other than transcribing it to a clean, legible printable, copy, I didn’t do much work. I wish they’d had a few more perfectionist/obsessives doing those old patterns…

The font is from my backstitch font set in my shop. With Blogger I'm not sure the best way to get the pattern at original size (and thus best legibility), so you can just save it from here.

The dimensions are 93x92 stitches, no grid due to the backstitch. Some of the face stitches aren’t full stitches or from corner to corner, mostly the noses and mouths, so experiment and be a bit loose there.

I just loved this image so much (and the quote of course). So someone please stitch it so I can see how it looks finished! I have so many other things to work on…

Books

I read 156 books this year. I could have read four or five more, but 156 is divisible by 52 and I'm a bit neurotic about things like that. I started a really really long audiobook and otherwise I'm just re-reading things until new year.

Favorite Non-fiction reads of 2013: The Black Count by Tom Reiss, Toms River by Dan Fagin, Sister Citizen by Melissa V. Harris-Perry, American Nations by Colin Woodard, Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, The War that Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander, Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary, Indian Givers by Jack Weatherford, Marie Curie and Her Daughters by Shelley Emling, The Vikings by Neil Oliver.

Favorite Fiction reads of 2013: Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson, Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (most unexpected!), The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama,

Favorite Children's and YA Reads of 2013: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, The Illyrian Adventure by Lloyd Alexander, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggins, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede,

Oh, here I am.

Where have I been? Not crafting, that's for sure. 

I have been in the biggest crafting malaise since September. I've finished a few things, sure (though I don't count the knitting) but not nearly enough and I've designed nothing new.

It's been awful, but unavoidable. Part of it came from trying to stitch the Roman piece again because having stitched it once already it was just boring. I have finished the pattern but issues with the program I use to create symbol patterns means I haven't listed it yet.
Lately I've been dealing with a psychiatrist I dislike (hey man, saying things like "You don't look like a girl who would be single" is confusing, inappropriate, and creepy), horrible side effects from trying different anti-depressants, and the knowledge that those medications are unlikely to help me but this psychiatrist won't address what I feel WOULD help (don't worry, I've left him).

I actually got a bit further than this

So here you see what I've managed to get done, and a fractal piece that's nearly done (I'm cropping the pattern to fit in a 5x7 frame), though I probably won't finish it for Christmas. I've also knit this dinosaur cowl for my niece and I'm in the process of knitting one for my nephew. Hers is green with blue spikes and his is orange with blue spikes. 

Also, I've put up my Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Arsenal FC patterns for free (happy winter holiday/New Years). You can find all my free patterns here.

Present for a friend's baby.

I wish I could snap myself out of feeling the way I do, but it is a symptom of my life, and there's not too much I can change there. What I hope to change is the level of irrational anxiety I feel when communicating and especially when initiating communication. That's what's causing most of my depression, I think, both due to a lack of socializing and seeing myself act in a way that's SO foreign to my pre-disabled personality.

We'll see what 2014 will bring. 

How I feel/what I want to do. So jealous of my cat.

New DMC Colors

In the continuing feeling of BLEAH I've gotten very little done. I did go camping for a couple days last week though, and that was really nice. I miss being outside a lot, but the weather and my body's issues with the weather makes it hard.

I did, however, buy the new DMC colors like a fan-girlish fool (the box set is a lot more expensive than the individual colors will be when they're released singly). But when you own all the colors you get a bit silly.

Anyway, I thought I'd give you all the rundown on how each new color compares to the ones already out. Basically, there's very little difference, and at least one looks to be absolutely identical (the very bright orange).

The bright spot for me is the nice royal blue. It's brighter and lighter than 311, and a bit brighter than 803. There are so few blues, and I've definitely felt the absence of a better basic blue. The bright fuschia, 3886, is the also a nice edition. There's a brownish-grey, 3895, which doesn't have a close match either.


These pictures make them seem closer to pre-existing colors than they are, but seriously, they're really close and most don't fill a real gap. Wish they'd just done an all blue and purple expansion, as that's where I most often feel I can't find the exact color I need.