Incoherent Scribblings

In all honesty, I haven’t really been too homesick since I moved to Germany.

I have lived in a lot of places since I moved out of my parents’ home when I was 18: I haven’t lived closer than a three hour drive to my family in over ten years and I abandoned my Midwestern roots eight years ago. I spent some time in Paris while I was in college, I went to Texas for a couple of years, and I spent some time in the South before heading out to the West Coast.

I think all of that moving more or less cured me of homesickness long before I ever came to Germany and I am also of the opinion that living in all of those places served to more easily acclimatize me to living in a foreign land.

After all, any American can tell you that while we all may be “Americans,” there is a big difference between being a Texan, a Southerner, a Midwesterner, or from the West Coast. In some ways, it is like we come from different worlds.

However, even after saying all that, once in a great while I realize that I do miss things about “home.”

Every time I get an email from my mother I realize how many things concerning my family that I am missing out on. I didn’t know my aunt had been diagnosed with diabetes until she had to have bypass surgery. I didn’t know my sister had gotten back together with her boyfriend until I found out they were expecting a baby.

Their lives go on, but I don’t find out about things as soon as they happen. I don’t so much feel sad about this as I do out of the loop. Mom’s emails always begin, “Remember this, that, or so-and-so?” To which I reply, “Actually, no, I don’t.”

Occasionally something will remind me of Iowa and suddenly I want to be in that place I fought so hard to leave more than anything any the world. When I see the pitiful corn attempting to grow in the rocky Bavarian soil, my mouth waters as I remember hot summer days filled with hog roasts, buttery corn-on-the-cob, and swimming for hours on the man-made lake outside of town.

And though I seldom really miss my family or the land of my birth, it is a great comfort for me to know that no matter what happens I can always return there and be welcomed with open arms.

Happy Fourth of July everyone (even if you aren’t American)!

Oops… I have been a bad girl today! I started a new project!

Well, actually this is what happened: I spent all afternoon stitching on “Passing Admirers.” First I watched Gattaca while I finished page one of the design, which is actually the fifth page I have completed out of six.

Then I sat down to watch Wimbledon (May I say I found the Gentlemen’s Final much less exciting than the Ladies’ Final yesterday?) and picked “Passing Admirers” back up. I stitched along with the tennis match and at the end of the second set I noticed that something seemed to be amiss.

I checked and double checked and it seemed that I had made a mistake a few rows up and if I didn’t fix it everything would be off. So I ripped out the rows. After I ripped out the rows, I went to restart the area and I realized that I hadn’t made a mistake after all! I had ripped those rows out for nothing! Frustrated, I put “Passing Admirers” aside and thought I was done stitching for the day.

While I was unnecessarily ripping out the rows, my mind kept wandering to the fabric I dyed the other day. At first I thought I might stitch one of the smaller “Flower Fairies” on one piece of fabric, but it just didn’t seem right.

Then I thought about one of TW’s dragon freebies. It seemed perfect. So after flipping through them, I decided on ” ‘Tempest’ in a Teacup.” Once I examined the chart, I realized that while there are a lot of three-quarter stitches, there isn’t any one-over… so while I normally wouldn’t stitch a TW on Aida cloth, I decided to use that 14 count Aida that used the off-white base, as it is my favorite of the three pieces.

I did a floss toss and realized that I wasn’t all that crazy with the predominately salmon colors of “Tempest,” but then remembered Lorna did “Tempest” a while back with a blue-green conversion.

So then I spent a couple of hours getting my own blue-green conversion for “Tempest” ready. I was planning on waiting until tomorrow to start, but I really wanted to get a feel for whether or not I would like my color conversion, so I put a couple of stitches in the middle. One thing led to another and pretty soon it was an hour and a half later and I had a good start on “Tempest!”

So far I really like my conversion, though I don’t think the scan does it justice. The fabric is actually lighter than it appears and the floss doesn’t really blend into it like it seems to on the scan.

I think it is amusing… Like my first Mirabilia, I started with a smaller TW designs, but I jumped feet first into converting the colors!