Incoherent Scribblings

For the past few months A. has been quietly looking for a new job, and for the past couple of weeks he has been talking to a guy about a particular job. It was decided early last week that today and tomorrow he would go in for an interview.

An interview is certainly something to get excited about and after our initial excitement wore off, we realized something very critical: We would have to buy A. a suit!

Because, you see, A. and I are very casual people. In the entire time I have known him he has only seen me in a dress once… and that was our wedding. (I only wore a dress to my wedding because my mom said I had to.) Additionally, I have only seen A. in a tie once (also at our wedding) and never in a suit. (In case you wonder, I wore a sundress to our wedding; he wore a shirt and tie – which my dad tied for him - with a nice pair of dress pants.)

So last week after discussing with several people where the best place in town was to buy a suit, A. and I went downtown and bought him a one… along with a dress shirt, a new belt, and a tie! (We still had the shoes and socks we bought him for our wedding, even though they were so dusty I thought they were gray instead of black!)

Actually, buying the suit itself was no great adventure. We went the recommended store and a nice lady took us under her wing and fitted him up with everything he needed with no problem. (I, of course, had final veto power, but since I know little about suits, I didn’t exercise it.)

All in all, I must say I was quite impressed. Sometimes I forget what a handsome man I married. (Note to self: When husband leaves the house looking F-I-N-E, I really must insist he wear his wedding ring.)

So on to last night… I had asked A. a few days ago if he could tie a tie, because I didn’t know how. He replied it didn’t matter: He would find the instructions on the internet.

Well, he did find instructions on the web but when I suggested he practice a bit so he wouldn’t feel stressed about the whole tie-business this morning, he poo-pooed the idea. Finally, about 11:30 last night, I convinced him that he should practice a bit before bed.

He tried. He really did. First he tried the Four in a Hand Knot, then the Windsor Knot, and then the Half Windsor Knot, but he just couldn’t seem to get the hang of any of them. He stood in front of the mirror with the printed instructions taped on the closet door, but he just ended up sweaty and had nothing to show for it but a wrinkled tie.

While he was struggling with his tie, I found the wedding tie and, just for fun, pulled up my own set of instructions and started working on tying my tie. I didn’t even look in the mirror and I got the Windsor Knot on the first try. Sure, it was asymmetrical and the narrow end of the tie hung below the wide end, but I did it. I then went on to the Four in a Hand Knot and the Half Windsor and managed to do them all with the first try.

As A. fought his tie, I kept practicing with mine and eventually got my Four in a Hand Knot neat and straight. After much grumbling, A. took me up on my offer to tie his tie for him this morning and I will do it again tomorrow for the second part of his interview.

However, if he gets a job where he has to wear a tie everyday, he better learn how to tie it himself: I refuse to be his personal tie-tier for the rest of his life!

After reading about my “Tempest” conversion, Zohrah suggested the following SBQ:

Have you ever done a color conversion? If so, what did you think about your results and would you do it again? If not, would you like to try someday?

You can read my thoughts on the matter in the previous post.

He’s done!

After 12 hours and 30 minutes in the past two days, I finished ” ‘Tempest’ in a Teacup…” my first Teresa Wentzler design! As I have already mentioned, I really enjoyed stitching this piece.

I have had some extremely positive remarks concerning my color conversion, so in the next couple of days I will post it for those of you interested.

I really like doing color conversions with cross stitch pieces, but it isn’t an easy process. It requires that you spend a little more time with a piece and are able to visualize what your end product will look like. However, when I do one it makes me feel even more creative and artistic than usual.

When I do a color conversion, the first thing I ask myself is whether I want to do a major conversion (changing nearly everything) or just a minor one (changing just a few things here and there.) If it is minor, I just change things on the fly and as I feel that they fit into the piece.

But if it is a major conversion, I do a lot of preplanning. I have to ask myself what I envision the end product looking like. For “Tempest,” I knew that I wanted to have a green dragon, so I quickly realized that I would have to change most of the colors of the pattern. I also knew that I wanted to stitch on my lavender fabric and that the colors of my dragon would have to be pretty bright so that he didn’t fade into the fabric.

Once I made those preliminary decisions, I laid out the “true” colors of Tempest so that I would know which colors belonged where. Since I also wanted to stay in the spirit of a blended TW design, I also needed to see what blends Teresa suggested so that I could figure out how to do my own blends.

In Teresa’s “Tempest,” the body of the dragon is shades of coral, his spines are a violet/blue mix, his wings are gold, and the teacup is white with shades of gray and light violet. I didn’t want to change the teacup, so I left those colors as is with the exception of the fact that I changed the colors of the flowers on the cup from blue to mauve. For the dragon, I chose teal blends for his body, bright blue and purple mixes for the spines, and silver for his wings. These colors also made up the border.

In her instructions, Teresa uses various colors for the backstitching to accentuate certain parts of the dragon. At first I tried this, but in the end I backstitched everything in one color (dark pewter gray) because otherwise I felt that he merged too much into the fabric. If I were to do him again on white/cream/ivory fabric I would backstitch with my colors according to Teresa’s instructions.

In the end, I finished “Tempest” in about 49 hours. Of course, that counts six hours of stitching on Aida before I started over on Evenweave and over three hours of backstitching that I ended up ripping out because I didn’t like it.

Though it isn’t for everyone, color conversion is a fun process for me. I am secure enough in my artistic abilities to be pleased with my choices but also confident enough to rip out things I don’t like and do them over if necessary.

I worked on “Tempest” this weekend and am happy to report that I am done with the stitching. I will start the backstitching tomorrow and hopefully I will have a Happy Dance by Wednesday. I estimate that I have between 5 and 7 hours of backstitching to do, but I always find it difficult to guess how much time I will spend backstitching a piece.

I think I chose wisely when I decided to do “Tempest” as my first TW. I have had so much fun with this piece that not only am I looking at “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Lady of Shallot” with renewed enthusiasm, I also ordered “Tapestry Cat” and the leaflet that contains “Castle Ridge” and “Above the Clouds” on Friday!

Once I finish “Tempest” though, it will be back to “Passing Admirers,” since in order to finish it by my self-imposed goal of September 10, 2005 I need to put at least 15 more hours into it by the end of the month. I so love that piece, but I will also be so glad to get it done! Besides, I promised Bea the chart (we are going to do a trade) when I am finished!

More Quiz Fun!

	Your travel type: Travel Yup The Travel Yup likes exotic and adventurous travel, but prefers big cities with fast paced life. She has a keen interest in other cultures and always brings home a few souvenirs. Shopping in Bangkok, getting a tailor made suite in Kuala Lumpur, that’s the kind of thing the Travel Yup is into. Even though she likes to get away, she prefers her travels to be comfortable.
	top destinations: Alice Springs Ciudad Perdida Tahiti	stay away from: Venice Paris Tokyo

I like the description, but am not sure about the travel destinations. I love Paris, have always dreamed of one day visiting Venice, and think Tokoyo would be cool. Of course, Tahiti has always been on my dream vacation list, and after reading a bit about them, I must admit Alice Springs and Ciudad Perdida also sound intriguing!

OK, let me be honest… There are very few places that I wouldn’t go!