Incoherent Scribblings

Framing Quest

I have yet to have any of my cross stitch professionally framed. However, I am planning on changing this with “Passing Admirers.” This is my first big complicated piece and with all of the time and effort I am putting into it, not only do I want to look up and see it on my wall when I am finished, I want it to look professional.

I thought my local craft shop did framing. However, since I haven’t had anything professionally framed yet, I decided maybe I should take in another piece that I want to frame as a test subject.

In my mind’s eye this is how I pictured the scenario: I would come into the craft store and tell the lady I had something to frame. She would then go through the frames and mats with me making suggestions concerning the color of the mat and/or the style of the frame she thought would go best with the piece I wanted to frame. After I had chosen, she would take some notes concerning this and take my cross stitch to have it sent away and framed to my specifications. In a week or two I would return, pickup my newly framed cross stitch, pay, go home, and hang it on the wall.

In reality this is what happened: On Wednesday I took “Precious Family” with me to the craft store. There I chatted with the lady about framing. They had a selection of frame and mat samples and she told me once I had looked through them to let her know. She could then quote me the price and how long it would take. With the exception that the lady offered me no advice on matting or framing, it went pretty much as I planned.

Finally, I chose a frame (I decided I didn’t want a mat for this piece) and took it to the counter. There the lady had me measure my piece with the frame. She then took some notes, quoted me a price, and told me my frame would be ready in a couple of weeks. However, they just custom make the frame. All of the actual framing is up to you! (Luckily, I had been thinking ahead and had the size of “Precious Family” planned including the extra fabric for framing, so I should be able to frame it myself… it just won’t be professionally done as I had hoped.)

Well, I went ahead and got the frame, but this is totally NOT what I have in mind for “Passing Admirers.” If I want to do my own framing, but just order a custom frame, then my local craft shop is the place to go. Otherwise I guess I will head to the GelbeSeiten (Yellow Pages) to see if somewhere in Munich there is an actual professional framing shop.

Bloggus Interruptus

We interrupt your regularly scheduled enjoyment of “Culture Shock and the blondelibrarian” to bring you the following announcement:

Wedneday evening at approximately 21:30 while doing a disk defragmentation, the blondelibrarian received the much-feared “blue screen of death.” After much struggle by her computer-science-qualified geek of a husband, the rescue was abandoned. The hard drive flat-lined and the time of death was pronounced at 00:21 Thursday.

On Thursday afternoon a visit to the computer doctor confirmed our deepest fear: The computer must be sent to the manufacturer for a hard drive replacement. Estimated return: 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, the blondelibrarian will continue blogging from A.’s computer, but probably at a less than prolific rate. Please stay tuned. We will inform you of the situation as it develops.

We now return you to the regular blog.

Time Out!

I won’t bore you with the details here, but suffice it to say that Wednesday evening my computer’s hard drive took a nose dive and is at the computer doctor for a couple of weeks. Never fear though! I live in a two computer household and so while my computer is at the doctor I am using hubby’s. Problem is that I can’t be online as much as normal because hubby wants to use his computer too! The rat!
Anyway, this has given me the perfect opportunity to start on “Girl’s Time Out.” I have clocked four hours so far and it is going smoothly. I made sure to do some of the pink before I went too far so that I could make sure the pink floss doesn’t clash with the pink fabric. It doesn’t. In fact, I think I made a great choice.

I am planning on doing some more work on it this weekend and maybe finally making that pillow I have been planning for “Siamese Kitty.”

Tears on the Wall Paper

The living room of the house where I spent the majority of my childhood (4-11) was a monster of a room. It had once been two rooms, but when we re-modeled it due to a collapsed ceiling that was a direct result of an overflowing toilet, my dad decided to tear out the dividing wall and make it one room. Even though there was no longer a wall, in essence it remained two rooms; with the seldom-used pool table at one end and the “TV corner” at the other. There was an arched entryway into the dining room and a corner just big enough for a little girl to stand in.

I like to think that overall I was a good little girl. However, I did have my naughty and mischievous moments, which usually caused some harm (mental or physical) to my little sister. It was at those times that, after a pop on the butt, my mom would send me to the corner of the dining room entryway to “think about” what I had done.

When I had to stand in the corner, there was no specific time stated, nor was it called a “Time Out.” It was “Standing in the Corner” and since Mom only sent me to the corner when she was really mad it was truly the punishment I feared most of all. I was required to stand there and face the wall until Mom was good and ready to let me come out.

I think I always went to the corner sobbing. First I would bawl because of the pop my butt had received, but once the sting wore off, I would cry at the injustice that I felt was being done to me. I wasn’t allowed to sit, so my little legs would quickly get tired of standing still and even though the TV was opposite my corner, I couldn’t watch it; only hear what was going on. I would never have thought that just hearing the TV would be such torture, but it was! I don’t really know how long I stood in the corner on average. It was probably only a few minutes, but to me it seemed like hours!

When I was 11, we moved out of that house and into a big farm house in the country. By then I hadn’t stood in that corner for quite some time, but I clearly remember bidding that corner with its tear-stained wall paper good riddance and hoping that the new house didn’t have such a “convenient” place for badly-behaved girls to stand.

Floss Toss

I am getting ready to stitch one of the pieces I got from my last online needleshop orders, “Girl’s Time Out,” by Michele Johnson.

It is just so cute and it really reminds me of me when I was little. Oh, how many hours I spent in that one “special” corner in our living room! I am sure the wall paper was stained with my tears.

…And the little kitty that is faithfully standing by, thankful that the little girl cut the doll’s hair and not his fur! Too cute!

I thought I might do it on some pink evenweave that I have. I wasn’t sure if there would be too much pink, so I did a floss toss. You can’t really tell from the photo that the fabric is pink, but it is. The pinks in the piece are quite a bit darker than the fabric, so I think it will work out just fine. Besides, I have so darn much of that pink fabric! I know I told the lady half a meter and I know I only got charged for half a meter, but I think there was a boo boo, because I swear I ended up with more like a meter!