Promises, promises

I promised you a photo of the marquoir , but I have to admit that I didn't work on it at all this weekend. I spent much of Saturday working on a present for my niece's birthday. It's a rag quilt made from puppy flannel fabrics. Of course, I bought this fabric in December, and they're changing her room decor from puppies to horses (her other obsession) this month. Of course. We're also going to (God help me) take her to Strasburg when Thomas comes.

Then the dude called in one of his Christmas presents--a monthly trip to a new-to-us restaurant that was packaged as "around the world on your stomach, without ever leaving home." We went to Vietnam on Saturday night. There's a Vietnamese place of that name in Philly's Chinatown. We started in the third floor 40's style lounge. The dude thought it reminded him of "that movie...the one with Michael Caine." "The Quiet American," I said. Then we noticed it was playing in an endless loop on the flatscreen. We were sitting in a location where we could mostly ignore it because it's one thing to sit in Philadelphia's Chinatown in a 40's style French-colonial-inspired Vietnamese lounge, and quite another to sit on a fake Quiet American movie set while you watch the movie in an endless loop. We had some delicious food. So no stitching on Saturday.

Then on Sunday, I went to an alumnae club craft group. It was mostly knitters but one woman was spinning cotton and I stitched on Tall Flowers. I couldn't bring the marquoir and my travel piece is just cute, not very impressive. So I brought something that I hoped was funky to encourage people to see the possiblities of cross-stitch. It was a great group. Two students showed up (we met on campus) and we had alumnae from the 40s (dedicated argyle sock knitters as undergrads), 60s, 70s (the first class who could wear trousers to class), and 80s (the first computer users). I'd tell you more about the woman from the class of '62 except that she asked if anyone could show her how to do cables, and the woman in the most beautiful cabled sweater I've ever seen could. She spent two hours concentrating on that but she promised to come to our next meeting and participate a little more. We meet again in April.

After Sunday dinner I went back to work on the blanket which is due next Sunday. I sewed together three rows of seven squares. Six to go. Then it's on to Sissy's overnight bag.