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.

Dish & Disclosure

So, yes, I'm working on Fremme's Blue Lady. The Pistols. I got the urge, suddenly, and every stitcher knows that you can't fight the urge. Sometimes it's a fake urge, though. In case of a fake urge, I think I need to work on the Blue Lady, but as soon as I thread my needle I realise the time isn't right after all. This time, the time was definitely right. Heidi was wondering how far along I am, so I took a pic of me showing the Blue Lady. I'm an average sized female, by the way (apart from the calves, obviously), so you may get some idea of her size.

As you can see, I've slowly started making my way down. This serves two purposes: (a) it allows me to check if I won't run out of fabric once I get to the bottom - no matter how many times I checked, re-checked, counted and re-counted before I started, I'm never completely comfortable until I know exactly where a piece ends; and (b) if you feast your eyes on the total picture of the blue babe in my sidebar, you will see that she is standing on a carpet of flowers, featuring about seven million of these exact same squares:

Working all of this right at the very end, all in one go, will most probably finally wipe that inane smile off my face that I always carry when I work on the Blue Lady.

Shall I tell you a little secret? It's a very embarrassing secret, so I'm not sure that I should tell you, but I'm going to anyway. I'm never going to finish the Blue Lady. Never ever. Because yesterday evening I had this premonition that once I put the final stitch into her, I'll be finished too. This is not a joke, I swear. And just to be on the safe side (my premonitions are eerily accurate most of the time), I just won't finish her. Maybe I'll purposely NOT stitch one of the flowery squares, just so that she will never be really finished.
As I suspected, there weren't that many takers for Spring, Birds and Branches by Fremme, but enough to warrant an official drawing by my adorable little man. And since you were all so enthused about my Polish pottery, I took the opportunity to sneak a piece into the picture :o)

The Drawing...


The opening...
Congratulations, Giovanna! Be a dear and send your snail mail address to amcdevries AT gmail DOT com, and I'll send the birdies on their way to Italy.

Well, that's it from me for today. I hope you're enjoying a wonderful week. It's rather springlike here, and since it's a halfday for Pelle today, I think a long ramble through the woods is in order :o)

Yours bluely, but in a good way,
Annemarie.

Mummy time

Thank you all for your encouraging and sweet comments on my last. My post turned out a lot grumpier than I had planned, so here's a little something about nothing, to cheer you up a bit. Some of you have asked how I handle the mother of all BAPs, the Blue Lady? Well, here's how:

*Colourful, much?*

And my current favourite beverage to go with it. Fresh mint tea.

*Yum*

I sincerely hope your weekend will be as relaxing as mine.

Yours cocooningly,
Annemarie.