The (not so) Young and the Restless

Wow. So I guess you’re all quite impressed with my progress on The Blue Lady:o) Well, she is quite large. Only, don’t tell me that every time you see her, because I get a little intimidated when you do that, resulting in me asking myself what the *humph* I’m doing, working on such a huge piece. I haven’t touched her since my last post. You all really scared me.

Just one more thing about her, before I move on: some of you were wondering how many shades of blue are used to make this lady so blue. The answer will probably be more of a shock to you than the size of her, because the total number of colours used in this piece is an astonishing... nine. In total. For the entire piece. Five shades of blue, two tans, one gray, one pink. The illusion of so much colour is created by using different stitches. The face and the dress, for instance, are worked in half cross stitches, so the colours look a little lighter than when they are worked in regular cross stitches. Also, you can see where the threads are tucked into the backs of other stitches, giving the illusion at the front that the threads are hand-dyed, with lighter and darker strands. Hm. I think I may have talked myself into working on her some more :o)

The reason I’m here today is because of the Totally Useless SAL. Honestly, I don’t know where all the orts came from this month, because I hardly did any stitching, it seems!

I will admit I’m not a Scrooge when I stitch. A bit of a thread-waster, I am. Maybe that’s why my ort cup overfloweth sometimes.
The thing is, I’m extremely restless on the crafting front at the moment. Yesterday, I suddenly found myself kitting up an embarrassing number of projects and not wanting to start any of them. Today, I turned one (!!) of my WIP/UFO drawers upside down with a view to doing some rigorous eliminating of projects I’m never going to finish. I made a pile of projects I was going to cut up in order to rescue some good pieces of fabric, and then throw the rest (with hours and hours worth of stitching on them) away. I started off pretty light-heartedly, but as I progressed, my belief that this was the right thing to do started wavering. In the end, I just tucked everything back in the drawer. What is your experience with this sort of feeling? Do you act on it? Do you clear out your UFO drawers every once in a while and throw out the things you know you will never finish? And if you have been that soldier, have you had any regrets?

Although I’m pretty restless when it comes to crafting, I’m in rather a peaceful state of mind right now. If not zen-like, then very nearly so. In the evenings, I just want to read - study, really, but I won’t tell you what, because I'm sure you're all going to be laughing at me. It’s a very long time ago that I did any studying, and I’m really enjoying it. Not when this happens, though:

Pantoef, Pain in the Posterior par excellence. In fact, I got Pipien as an addition to the family to keep Pantoef busy and out of my way when I’m working, but Pien remains blissfully unaware of her job description, because meanwhile, on the other side of the living room:

Ooh! I got the Birds from the framer’s! I’m not entirely sure if the frame is exactly what I wanted... No, actually, I’m definitely sure this is not at all what I wanted, but I only thought of that when I got it home. Maybe I’ll go and have it re-framed some time. What do you think?

Look at me, giving you so much homework with all of my questions! The thing is, I really care about what you have to say. Your comments always make me happy, whether they make me think, or :o) or :-) or :-D

My weekend starts now, so I’d better be off and do some stitching. Or knitting. Or crocheting. Or reading. Or studying. Or... sleeping?

Yours restlessly,
Annemarie.