Little House on the Prairie

This is a pattern I designed for an Etsy customer who is now my super e-mail friend! This is her finished work and her picture. 

It's the original cover to Little House on the Prairie, illustrated by Helen Sewell. You can buy in the pattern in my shop!

I've also completed my cover of Understood Betsy and the pattern will be in the shop in the next couple of days.

In Euro Cup news, SO glad England won their game today. I had a bad morning and definitely needed the cheering up. It was a brilliant game and I hope it enthuses the team enough so they play well against Ukraine. Actually I'm torn on that, as I enjoy the Ukrainian teams and was hoping for more from them. I want Croatia to advance from Group C, and my money is on Germany to win it all. I feel guilty for having missed all of Group A's games!

Also, I'm already feeling homicidal towards Adrian Healey and Ian Darke. I think the commentating should be left to former footballers. I love Steve McManaman (hadn't heard him commentate before), and I like Twellman pretty well. Both know it's okay NOT to talk sometimes, that fans don't want to hear inane drivel and pointless statistics. I'd also like them to team up with comedians, which would liven up the boring games. It is my dream to hear Sean Lock commentate a game (along with a 'proper' commentator, since you've got to have a straight man).

Swapping around

Julie of Subversive Cross Stitch and I swapped pieces and I got this fabulous indicator of my frequent mood! I sent off my Man on Fire piece to her this morning.

I tried to make a cross face for the picture but somehow couldn't, so I'm including this picture of my niece, Evie, doing her best death-glare.

If any of you are interested in swapping, please let me know! It doesn't have to be embroidery for embroidery, and I'm happy to ship overseas. My pieces won't come framed or mounted, but they will be in mailing tubes so you won't have to do any ironing. Just leave me a comment, send me a message, whatever. Almost every piece I've made I still have.

The last week was been very tiring, and this week promises to be no different. I'm so tired of feeling constantly exhausted. 

On the plus side, it's the Euro Cup! Best game I've seen so far is Sweden-Ukraine. Very exciting second half. Sad to see Ireland lose to Croatia (and to see Croatia's stupid new shirts), but maybe they can make it up in the next game. England-Ukraine should be interesting. 

There was also a US World Cup qualifier that I caught the other day and another tomorrow, only it's a stadium vaguely near me and therefore unavailable to watch on TV. Grumble grumble. It's nice to have so much soccer to watch though! I would rant here about the US team and coaching and the Cult of Landon Donovan that the commentators are STILL drunk on. Even if they haven't noticed that he's never fulfilled that hype, surely they should realize that it puts immense pressure on him as a player. (Okay, that was a tiny rant.)

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.