Incoherent Scribblings

According to a couple of blog posts I have read today, apparently I wasn’t the only stitching hermit this weekend!

Yesterday I worked on “Fairy Flora” and after deciding to fudge instead of frog an error I discovered, she now has a wing!

I have to admit that the decision between fudging and frogging wasn’t the easiest to make. Fudging meant that I would leave the mistake and although no one else would probably ever know it was there (unless I broadcast it on my blog ) I would know… Was it a mistake that would haunt me for the rest of my days?

On the other hand, if I chose to frog I would have to rip out almost half the wing and all the nasty blending filament that went along with it. Since I didn’t foresee the blending filament being in any shape to reuse it once I had removed it, I also faced the distinct possibility that I would run out of BF before I finished Flo’s other wing.

After weighing the possibilities, I decided I could live with the knowledge that there is a slight imperfection in the wing so fudging won out over frogging.

* * * * *

Today was my “Harvest Witch” SAL with Dawn and I managed to finish the skirt and get started on the “harvest.” I probably could have gotten more “harvest” done, but I have found that stitching while watching Lost: Season 1 (Yes, I am behind the times… I am still trying to catch up from living abroad!) isn’t the easiest thing to do. Luckily, I was watching it on DVD so whenever I missed something because I was looking at my stitches instead I just backed up a few frames.

Anyway, I was reading Dawn’s post and she was saying that if her Kreiniks don’t arrive this week she won’t have much more to do on Harvey until they get here. To be honest, I kind of hope they don’t arrive, that way I can catch up with her next Sunday! hee hee

And speaking of the Kreiniks for Harvey… I ordered mine (along with a special order for a friend and the beads for “Spring Queen” and “In Cupid’s Garden”) today. Hopefully by the time they get here Dawn and I will have nothing more to do but use them to fill in the blanks.

As you can see, I worked some more on “Kitty Cat Row” today. I think it is safe to say that next time I post a picture of this piece it will be a happy dance.

In other stitchy news, I also worked on Outi’s belated birthday exchange piece today. I have now restitched everything I had to frog and made a little more progress to boot. Hopefully the rest of the piece will stitch up without any drama. I think I could very well finish this by Christmas but I will probably wait until after the first of the year to send it off to Finland nevertheless so the chances that it gets lost in the mail will be minimized. I hope you don’t mind waiting a wee bit longer Outi!

And finally, I wanted to mention that Bea’s robin made its way back to her in Spain this past week! She was part of The Robin’s Nest round robin that I organized almost a year a half ago that fell apart due to a number of bad circumstances. Three of the original participants of this robin stitched squares for Bea and the fourth was done by Dawn.

Dawn kindly offered to be a substitute stitcher if I needed one, so I took her up on the offer. She did a great job choosing a pattern for Bea’s “cutie” theme and I could tell from the translation I did of Bea’s page that she was very happy to finally see her robin in person after all this time.

Thanks for helping us out Dawn! I really appreciate it.

I know it has been a while since I had any stitching progress to show and while I could blame it on all the time I have been spending with a certain someone that is not the whole story.

As anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows, I am very, very close to finishing “Above the Clouds.” So close, in fact that I thought with a little concentrated effort I could finish Confetti by the end of November. That was my goal and I have tried very diligently to meet it. However, after almost 20 hours I was tired of Confetti and wanted very badly to change projects.

At that point I decided to start working on Outi’s belated birthday exchange piece. It was a good distraction from Confetti and I thought I was on a roll: I would finish Outi’s present in no time flat, get back to Confetti, and voilà! my November goals would be met and all would be well.

Unfortunately, things were not to be that way…

I was about one-third of the way into Outi’s exchange piece when I discovered a huge mistake. Because it was one of those boo-boos that couldn’t be fudged, I ended up having to frog out almost half of what I had stitched. As you can well imagine, by the time I was finished frogging I was so frustrated that I knew that it had to be put away for a while. (I am still going to try and get it to you by Christmas Outi!)

I keep saying that I am so close to finishing “Above the Clouds,” (and I am!) but it is a TW and as a result, needs full attention and unbroken concentration to really make any progress.

However, by Thursday afternoon I thought was ready. So with my tummy full of turkey I sat down and attempted to make some more progress on Confetti. Within fifteen minutes my desire for that after-Thanksgiving-dinner nap had taken over and Confetti was put away for the day.

The next day I tried yet again to make some progress, but I was restless and couldn’t find my stitching groove. After about an hour I gave up and began to wonder if I was in danger of temporarily losing my stitching mojo.

Disappointed at my lack of progress on Confetti, it was then that I started fondling my stash. I wrapped my DMC 100s, rearranged my bobbin boxes with the help of the kittens, and began flipping through my JCS Ornament issues.

I thought perhaps I needed a happy dance: Something simple and fast that would make me feel like I had accomplished something. Soon I was inspired. I found a scrap of fabric and within minutes I had started “Spool Ornament” by Sue Hillis from this year’s ornie issue.

After the errands were done and before the snow started falling on Saturday, my needles were flying. By the time I was ready for bed that evening “Spool Ornament” was (mostly) finished and I knew that I hadn’t lost my mojo, I was just sick of the things I was “supposed” to be working on.

Yes, I would still like to finish “Above the Clouds” before the end of the year, but I have decided that if I don’t it is no big deal. I will finish it when I am ready.

Today’s SBQ is:

When you have to frog out stitches, do you reuse that thread or do you start over with a new strand?

Well, honestly it depends on how much I have to frog and what condition the floss is in once I have pulled out the stitches. If I don’t have to frog more than half a dozen stitches or so, I just trim the ends, rethread my needle, and continue on my merry way unless the floss is too short or too frayed.

However, if I have to frog out a large section I usually end up using new floss because, in my opinion, after pulling out all those tiny little stitches the thread is too frayed to rethread my needle, let alone use again for stitching. Of course, if I have a severe attack of frogs that requires cutting the floss away, I have no choice but to use new floss.