Life is skittles and life is beer...

I love Tom Lehrer's music. Absolutely love it. My dad found it when he was in college and introduced me to it when I was in middle school. My first exposure was the song Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, which my dad chose to teach me (we drove a lot, so we sang in the car all the time) because I don't like birds. I spent a good portion of my senior year singing "Bright College Days" at people.

Yes, that was me in the park as a 10 year old running and screaming at the pigeons to make them fly away. You can't just run at them, they don't go far enough. I perfected a sort of squawky crow noise that worked wonders. I still do it as an adult, even from a wheelchair. 

So here's a WIP shot of the Tom Lehrer embroidery I'm working on. The border below the text will be a line of dead pigeons. Then I'll be doing rows of poison bottles and a skull on either side. Overkill? Perhaps, but that's the point of the song!

My favorite line in the song is actually "We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment, except for the few we take home to experiment," but it doesn't make a good stand-alone embroidery piece. The line I chose is recognizable to fans but not the most predictable choice. Plus people who don't know the song might also find it funny. 

The only downside is that while working on it I literally can not get the song out of my head. Even while listening to other music my head is still singing about poisoning pigeons.

finishing up

So here's the finished version of my Billy Bragg quote blackwork piece. I think it's finished anyway. I thought about doing from falling stars from the bottom, like raindrops dripping off the piece, but that sounded like it would be a pain in the ass so I gave it up.

I just can't get over the lovely way that the stars combined. Pretty pretty pretty! Wouldn't it be interesting to do a quilt full of blackwork and cross stitch made to look like common quilt motifs? That's way beyond my laziness level, but it's a neat idea.

Also, after saying I'd post my Liverpool FC pattern in my Etsy store forever ago I totally forgot! My brain doesn't work well most of the time, but this is ridiculous. Anyway, it is NOW for sale in my store. I think I'll have to start stitching one for my dad now.

progress

Here's some more progress on the Billy Bragg quote. Gorgeous, nee?

I've been working on a pattern for a piece using an AD Wintle quote - "Time spent dismounted can never be regained." I'm not sure what context it was meant in, but I'm taking it in a sexual sense because that amuses me most. 

It's another blackwork piece with very traditional elements but I'm having trouble fitting things together in a way that looks good.

Had dinner with the family (madre, sister, brother-in-law, nephew, baby niece) tonight. Tired beyond belief but I made the fat baby Evie giggle a lot, which is always a good feeling. Plus I got lots of kisses and cuddles from my Benjamin. It's so hard though. A couple hours of it and I need a full day to recover. It's depressing.

Billy Bragg-a-lot

I love me some Billy Bragg, but there's one line in particular that always makes me smile and makes my mom crack up and do her "I'm a crazy mom!" face (no offense, I love that face). So I plucked it out and embroidered it up. 

Plus I really love the the way the border is going. Combined in this way it's so quilt-like (which is so my mom) and just really pretty. I say again and again, blackwork is the queen of embroideries! It just amazes me the various effects that can be used which all look so different from one another. At the same time when you create a pattern, filler, or motif yourself it is such a triumph. Also this piece is perfectly symmetrical (thank you god!).

Do you ever get an album and then take a ridiculously long time to really listen to it? I do, all the times. I finally made myself really listen to Sarah Harmer's album Oh Little Fire and it's brilliant. The song One Match is especially amazing. Consider it highly recommended.