Of Soup, Soap and Stitching

For those of you who are sick of the un-stitchy nature of my posts, I will start by showing a finish. It's not a recent finish. In fact, it's an embarrassingly old finish, in the shape of a birthday gift for my good friend Maria - that I finished last year and only sent this year for her birthday. Ouch.

The little angel is a Casa Mia freebie. The wee sampler on the back is my design, if such humble work can be called a design.

I loved it so much I made one for me as well, in my favourite DMC 221.

You may remember I am a reluctant participant in one of the many neighbourhood RRs that do the rounds in stitchy world. Reluctant because I have no penchant for deadlines - otherwise I think the whole concept of a neighbourhood RR is completely charming. Anyway. This is what happened a couple of nights ago:

This is the lovely Katrina's lovely Neighbourhood. I'm stitching one of the samplers that make up A Most Noble Pursuit: the one by Primitive Traditions that I also stitched for my own neighbourhood (Katrina liked this design so much that she asked me to stitch it for her as well, and I'm very happy to oblige). I'm the first to admit that this is picture offers a rather alarming view. Not only am I tackling it sideways, the piece itself looks like a stitching experiment gone horribly wrong. The thing is: I'm a backward stitcher (which would explain the sideways approach), plus I'm trying to find ways of working in the ends without making an absolute mess of the back. When you stitch in hand, this is not a problem: you just turn your fabric around. Q-snap, hoop: ditto. Not so when you're using an otherwise perfectly serviceable floor stand. If you want to work the back of your stitching, you either need to get rid of the ends without turning the fabric to see what you're doing, or you have to unscrew screws and flip the frame every time you reach the end of your thread. I have discovered that neither of these options work for me. So what I do is, I bring the ends of my threads to the front and fasten off at the end of a stitching session. That's why it looks as if Katrina's neighbourhood has exploded, but it hasn't, really. Oh, and in case you were all wondering and worrying about the November 15 deadline? The house is nearly finished, and it will be ready for the mail on Monday. A round of applause please, for this arch-procrastinator...

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To my surprise, some of you have expressed an interest in the soap series that I have announced. I'm glad to hear that you're interested to read about my woes (also: a little concerned. What does that say about my friends? That they're gloaters?), but it took me a while to figure out a way to go about it. Let me start by saying that I will announce the commencement of my soapy updates with the term 'Soapy Twist'. As soon as you see this term, those of you only interested in my stitching know that they're free to move to another blog, because that's when the stitchy part of my post will be done.

Whence the term 'Soapy Twist'? Why, I stole it. Of course. Well, I stole a perfect idea and modified it. Let me explain. I'm sure by now, the entire world is familiar with a great British actor called Hugh Laurie, although I have to admit that he's famous in the US for all the wrong reasons, i.e. House. Every fibre of my body protests when I see him prancing about with a stick and an American accent, because that is not MY Hugh Laurie. THIS is my Hugh Laurie:

Soupy Twist. Soapy Twist. See what I did here?

So. Soapy Twist it is. Before you consult Soap Opera Digest to read about your favouritest soap, you need to know a bit about the characters, right? Well, a list of characters can be found in my sidebar, with a couple of facts about their lives and how they relate to each other. I've changed the names, but I think most of you will be able to figure out who is who :o) At present, there are only three characters, named Amy, Jane and Petey, but I'm sure there will be more as the story progresses.

This is not a work of fiction. Except for the names, characters, places and incidents are - alas - not the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales are entirely deliberate.

For now, I'm leaving you with this mother of a cliffhanger.

Amy has just heard from her lawyer that Jane wants to see her in court. Again.