To Send or Not to Send

About a month ago, I read about textile artist Amy Meissner on Jen Funk Weber's blog. Go ahead, read about her work. I'll wait. (For those of you who have no time for interesting articles about textile artists, Amy recycles abandoned needlework, incorporating it into new, remarkable pieces.)

When I read about it, I immediately thought, "Frickin' Chicken." For those of you who haven't been introduced to Majestic Rooster it was published in Cross Stitch and Country Crafts in 19 dickety two. I chose to stitch it for my mother because it matched her dining room exactly. Before I was even close to finishing, my mother upped and redecorated her dining room. And then a few years after that, she moved out of the house all together.  

I started stitching in the middle and jumped around a lot, and in jumping screwed up. There is just a tiny bit of stitching left to do on this, but there is no way of knowing where I am on the pattern. I've tried to pick it up in the past but there's just no finding your way to making an x. I decided to send it in. I found it and went to iron it a little. 

That was the first time I really looked at it in a long time. I saw how little I had left to do*, and how amazing that green tail is. And I started to have second thoughts...On the one hand, yes I did all that work. On the other hand, this piece wouldn't really have a spot in my house, or my mother's, or even in the house she used to have. But then, it's thisclose to being complete. But it's a giant headache to stitch. If I let it go, it will go to good purpose. It will be rescued. I guess this is how my cousin feels when a foster dog goes to its new family.

And in thinking about this one, I've started to reconsider Watercolor Geraniums too.

What would you do?



*Even less than in this picture.

La Neige

This morning dawned snowy even though they swore up and down we weren't getting snow until this evening. Guess what? It's raining now. So they were wrong and wronger. Of course, I also woke up with a sore throat and scratchy voice. I've done nothing all day and still had to take a nap at 2:00.

Thank you for all your kind words about the marquoir. As promised, I did turn to Dimple's Designs' St. Basil's Cathedral. Unfortunately, my neighbor came over to work on a project with the dude and I talked his ear off instead of stitching. (Don't look too closely. Those yucky stitches have some sort of blending thread in them. Which thus far only serves to make my stitches look like crap.)

Yesterday I turned my attentions to Watercolor Geraniums. This pattern appeared in an old (1999) Cross Stitch & Needlework magazine. It has 44 different colors (including blended needles). Let me tell you what a pita it is to pull the flosses for this one. I should pick a month to finish it and just get 'er done.* If you're wondering what, exactly, I got done last night, look in the left corner above the pot.

Today I am practicing my French...knots that is. I'm going back to Teresa Layman's mermaid which I haven't worked on since 2009.

*This is the dude's motto for 2011. Thus the neighbor helping on the project.

The UFO Project: Watercolor Geraniums

It occurs to me that I just started posting these ufos without ever explaining myself. Don't you know why I've done it? Can't you read my mind? (When I was teaching writing, I always told students I could only read their papers, not their minds. Because, inevitably, they'd write a lot less than they had been thinking about a subject, and their much more interesting thoughts would come out in conversations with them, never in their papers. But I digress...)

I was up in the craft room and decided I Needed to Take Stock. And here it is, my stock taking. It has lead me to have Big Ideas about my 2007 resolutions, which I will share with you at the appropriate time.

Today's project is Watercolor Geraniums. I believe it was featured in Just Cross Stitch magazine. I started this in the late 90s for my mom, an avid gardner. Well, really, my mom has a tendency to get really into things--horseback riding, piano lessons, gardening--until the Next Big Thing comes along. But she's very earnest, and so charming, in her enthusiasm. I intended it to be a Christmas gift, but when I realized I wasn't going to finish on time, I put it aside. I put a few stitches in it this year, but it's stitched 3-over-2. Three is just too many. And what an ordeal it is to gather all the floss for this one!