Wow, has it been a busy week… I have to admit that I hadn’t picked up my needle at all until last night – and now I almost wish I hadn’t, but more on that in a minute. After I finished my Border Study, my week went sort of nutso. Last Sunday and Monday evening (after the girl child went to bed) were spent making a pre-decorated baby scrapbook for a friend of mine. Tuesday evening was spent throwing that friend a small baby shower. Wednesday evening was LOST watching night (oh, LOST… how do I love thee), Thursday night I crashed and burned after reading for about ½ hr (a friend loaned me Lady Killer by Lisa Scottoline… pretty good). I was SO tired. Friday night Ken & I went out for our Valentine’s Day dinner since our sitter was not available on Saturday. Saturday we ran errands, went on a fruitless search for shoes for the Munchkin, then had dinner with my dad & step mom. Sunday we did laundry, housework, etc., some friends came over for a couple hours, and then after Leah went to bed Ken & I watched the movie Fireproof. I had been warned to lower my expectations of the acting, and so I did. Some of the lines were really cheesy (I’m never satisfied with the way the gospel is presented in movies like this), and some of the acting was not real great… that said however, I did think it was, overall, a good film. It was a really good message about marriage, and I did like it.
Now on to the plague of frogs… So, last night I (finally) picked up the Wheels project I need to stitch for my friend Amy. Yeh. Why did I do that? Rather, why did I not look at the whole pattern before I picked up my needle and chose the place to start? The design is a border of different vehicles surrounding the child's name in big letters in the center. Well, I started at the top center of the border with a tractor. After I got the whole stinkin’ tractor stitched (over 2 hrs of stitching – I’m slow) I glanced at the next vehicle in the line up. A moving van type thing. Waaay taller than the tractor. I realized that that would only give me @1 inch of leeway between the top of the final stitched piece and the top of the fabric. Argh!!!! If it were linen, this wouldn’t be quite so disastrous, but I bought the fabric for this a while back when I still wasn’t sold on linen (still not terribly confident in my ability to count wide gaps between stitches on linen… counting is a bit easier on Aida) and I am stitching this piece on 18ct. Aida. Aida (maybe just mine) unravels faster than a ball of yarn being pulled apart by a seriously ticked off cat. So, by the time I’m done with the thing – if I don’t re-stitch – I could actually end up with the fabric unraveled to within like a millimeter of where the stitching starts. Argh!!!!! I was seriously ticked. So, tonight I get to listen to the symphony of my own personal frog orchestra as I frog and restitch. Ugh. I’ll post a progress pic tomorrow or the next day. When I can actually feel good about what I’ve accomplished on this piece.
Moving along to the “bad dream”…. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a dream. I was at my friend Miranda’s* house Tuesday evening. Now, before I go any further let me state for the record that I absolutely loooove her house. I love the floor plan, I love her décor… everything. There is tons of stuff to look at but it is not that horrible cluttered chotchke type thing. So anyway, I was using her bathroom, and was looking at a picture on the wall that I had admired on several previous visits. It's a pencil drawing sort of stuck to the frame… not behind glass, just sort of stuffed in there. As I was leaving the bathroom I looked back and noticed that one corner of it was curling away, so I went to push the paper back into place. As I did so, I saw a glimpse of what was behind it… hey wait a sec… that looks like… could it be… no way… with a furtive glance to ensure that I was unobserved I pulled the corner of the paper a bit further to reveal…
Oh. No. She. Didn’t. What I had glimpsed moments before was, in fact, a high count Aida fabric. What I revealed by pulling the paper back a bit more was some beautiful stitching. I almost passed out. When I could get my mouth shut I hollered “Miranda!!!!” I went and got her and pulled her into the bathroom half laughing, half seriously horrified. I asked her what was behind the paper. She said it was a wedding sampler. I said “If this is what you do to stitching you can bet your sweet bupkis I won’t be stitching anything for you!” She said “Well, she didn’t even give it to us for a year after we were married!” I said “It might have taken her that long to stitch it!!” She said “Well, it doesn’t go with our decorating style (she’s right – it doesn’t)!” I said “You could hang it in a closet for crying out loud!” She said “Well, we never see this cousin, so she’ll never know… and besides I like the frame. I couldn’t figure out how to get the fabric out of there without ruining the frame, so I figured I’d just cover it up for now.” I almost ran screaming from the house, lol!!! I was stunned, flabbergasted, and veklempt.
Due to this horrific and disturbing (and eye opening) experience of others’ treatment of a person’s labor of love I have decided – I will NEVER make another project for anyone but immediate family again unless they ask me to… several times. That way I will know they want whatever they’re requesting badly enough to warrant all the work I’ll do to get it done – and that they will subsequently hang it – and not attempt to hide or destroy it. I may even come up with a contract. They’ll have to sign in blood. :)
So anyway, progress pic tomorrow. Have a great evening!
*Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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