finally!

Well the Arsenal piece is finally done and I finished creating two new patterns today. They're humorous patterns, which will be a nice change.

I have been doing very little. Stitching, book listening, paper book reading, occasionally watching amusing videos featuring British comedians.

Also working on setting up an online book discussion group on Livejournal. Rule number one: must love Steinbeck.

Malice stitching?

Well, not malice, but grumbling. I pour a fair bit of grumbling into my Arsenal crest since they're not one of the teams I cheer for (go Liverpool, go Spurs!). I suppose we'll see if it has any effect in the next season.

Lots of progress here, which is nice. I'm listening to Lies My Teacher Told Me right now, which makes a good, involving, stitching-listening. It's also given me an idea for my greatest doomsday plan ever!

Oh wait, no, it gave me an idea for a great sampler. It will be a super abridged version of Lies My Teacher Told Me, with gems such as "Helen Keller: Socialist Activist" and "Woodrow Wilson was a racist dick."

Fabulous, right?

Plugging away...

Well, my Arsenal crest is no longer rude. It's just SO much stitching, since every single square of the design is a stitched square. 

I am a distinctly lazy stitcher, which is silly since I've got all bloody day every day to stitch. Partly I just like finishing things, and partly if I'm spending this long on a project then I'm coming up with fewer new patterns for my store. 

I've sold the Arsenal and Liverpool patterns a couple times with no images of the finished project, but I think it's far better to have those pictures. Partly that's so there's nothing for anyone to complain about, and partly because that way I know for sure what colors are good to use for you. Usually there's always one color I pick at the beginning of a project that I then change for something a little lighter or darker once it's done on fabric and next to the other colors.

Really I've made immense progress on the Arsenal crest given that I only worked on it a bit at the beach. About half the work was done yesterday and today. I'm just feeling a bit more AUGH! because I've gotten to the really annoying cannon wheel section which will take more mental attention and I'm still really sore and tired from vacation.

Also I don't cheer for Arsenal at all (being a Liverpool girl primarily), so perhaps that's it too. Oh, no, it's definitely the laziness.

EDIT: This pattern is now available for free.

I've randomly decided to tell you what books I'm listening to while I stitch. Right now it's Outwitting History by Aaron Lansky and it's really fascinating, plus the reader is quite good (which makes a big difference). It's about the non-profit organization he started to save Yiddish books after only learning the language himself as an adult. I really like listening to Yiddish spoken and there are short sentences all throughout the book (with translations, of course), so it's also nice on that account.

Being juvenile...

I was never juvenile in terms of finding swearing or slightly risqué things funny. I still have difficulty with euphemisms and slang because I never paid attention to such things (or watched any shows with sex-humor).

Sometimes I get tickled though. Sometimes I think to myself "I can make this work-in-progress say arse!" Then I have a good chuckle, then I have a good chuckle every time I think about it for the next month. This is, how you say, coping.

For all the sadness and heartbreak I feel, even on a daily basis, I don't have regrets. Well, other than being a picky eater for a large part of my childhood. I regret not eating more tasty things, but I never want to lessen my heartache because that would lower my happy memories in turn.

So now I amuse myself with accidental swearing and try to learn to numb my mind on the worst days. 

This is all rather melancholy, given that I've been at the beach with La Madre all week, with great weather and good food. There are reasons, but they belong to me.