Tuesday, September 18, 2012

New Project

I have started a new project. After finishing the cat banner, I couldn't seem to thrust myself into anything else. There's some personal stuff going on and it sort of interferes with the flow of motivation, kind of like, to use a current analogy, the defense stops or impedes the offense going down the football field. Sometimes things break through but there's been a lot of halting and just sitting in the recliner with a cat next to me.

Last weekend was the. last. weekend. of the summer of 2012. I cleaned on Saturday. There's an old joke about sweeping under the bed. "Ashes to ashes, the Bible says. If that's true, someone is either coming or going under my bed." The sounds of summer fading away in the warm afternoon made me determined to be out there on Sunday. What do I take with me?


It's International Book Week so a book wouldn't have been inappropriate, but I finally heard the call of the project I've had in my head since March. This will be a bit of a stretch for me. If I'm going to be cross-stitchingly (I'm an English major. I'm allowed to make up words.) creative, it tends to be in the line of stitching the design on something other than what the pattern shows. Witness the Eiffel Tower project from the spring. The pattern was stitched on a lavendar background. I chose an oatmeal imbued with gold flecks. This meant I had to stitch the entire sky in color instead of leaving sections open. The other change I made was stitching the bottom bushes a dark green. I think, in looking at the finished piece, those changes made the design "mine". But that's really as wild as I'll get. 

The project I'm starting is a combination of things. There is the piece of a pattern you see above. I happened to have all the colors of floss needed for this one. That is a red letter day in my book. No need to abort before blastoff simply because I don't have number 734. I am using the companion fabric to the oatmeal. This is a very light grey with silver flecks. You can't really see that in the above photo. Below is one afternoon's stitching. 


Some of the flecks are sort of visible. It's a very pretty fabric. Working with this and the oatmeal colored one makes me wonder what other projects might look like on something other than white. I realize this doesn't look like much but remember, like all my other projects, it will blossom into something in a few weeks.

And here's where the scarey part is. I have a design I'm working off of. I'm kind of messing a bit with the colors but not much. After that design is done, I have to freehand some words around the design. I'll have to pick the colors, pick the lettering style, pick where the words go on the piece. I've never been real good at figuring that out. What I want doesn't exist, anywhere, so I have to create it. In about 3 weeks, I'll be working without a net and that's a bit daunting.

It was a lovely day to work outside but I lost my scissors. These were my best cross-stitch scissors. They were roughly 3 1/2 to 4 inches long, silver metal, small, sharp, lightweight, perfect to stick into the plastic bag with the project. I had finished off a section of dark green and went to snip the inch of thread after making a quick anchor knot. The scissors squirted from my hands and when sideways between the slats in the deck and down below.

Now, I'm not heartbroken in that I will have to set this aside while I grieve. I have other scissors, but I am really bummed. The other pair of scissors I have is longer and not as sharp. They have a slightly clunky pink hand grip and will never be able to slide effortlessly between the slats in the deck floor. I couldn't have dropped the scissors through the slats if I'd have tried. It was one easy motion and plunk, they were gone. At some point, I want to replace them.

So, here I go into another project. Depending upon how fast this takes me, it might be the last that makes it out the door for Christmas giving.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb


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