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.)

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.

Books and soccer...

Sometimes I wonder about the world. I wonder how a badly written book can become a bestseller based on "oh the author understands emotion." When I say badly written, I mean it. Sloppy writing, unrealistic situations, inability to follow the basic "don't tell, show" rule, flat characters, no real ending, no real tension...

This makes no sense to me. I understand that some people don't care about the quality of writing, but those same people will defend the writing. I would just admit I didn't care about the writing but how the book made me feel, rather than villainizing people who DO care about the writing.

Oh well. Life goes on, and all that. I've finished my Liverpool FC piece and I quite like it! I would have started my Arsenal crest already but I was lacking the right color outline thread. I would have just worked around that yesterday, but I was feeling lazy. I'll probably start today.

Another break from the napkin...

I've gotten a little more done on the napkin since my last picture but felt like it was a good time to start another break project.

So I've finally started on my Liverpool FC crest pattern. It's turning out very well. I was a little concerned about the colors running together too much but once you get a big block done they're quite distinct (the darkest is much redder in person). 

It shouldn't take too much longer to finish, then I'll get another chunk of the napkin done, then I'll stitch my Arsenal crest.

My dad is coming down tomorrow, so there will be a bit of a slow down in stitching. Then on Saturday it's off to the beach!