There's a Certain Satisfaction

 That comes from finishing a project you started 25 years ago.

The pattern is Liz Turner Diehl's Cider House Garden. I started it all the way back in law school, but exams, the theater group, and, uh, socializing kept me from finishing it. I found it again a couple of years ago and, determined to finish it, I began working on it every fall. This spring I did a final push to finish the borders and it's done!

I used the called-for threads, and now I have a bunch of Madeira threads I probably won't use again; I'm a DMC gal. I did switch some colors around (the red and green quits were too Christmasy) and used more specialty stitches than the pattern indicated. Finally, because I was ready to be done, I simplified the border. 

Let's hope it doesn't take me another 25 years to frame it.

Book Round-Up

 The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood: This is part of the Canongate Myth Series, and is a novella retelling the Odyssey from Penelope's viewpoint. Penelope proves herself to be aware of the inequities of ancient Greek life, but all too willing to make use of those inequities when it suits her, leaving me feeling ultimately indifferent to her fate. Far more effective was the Greek chorus: the twelve maids killed by Odysseus, who intersperse Penelope's narrative with poems, songs, trial testimony, etc. Their voices were haunting.

Happy Place by Emily Henry: I didn't enjoy this one as much as Henry's other novels; a good deal of the angst and misery would  have been avoided if the characters had had honest conversations with each other a lot sooner. Beach Read is still my favorite.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman: This is the delightful start to a cozy mystery series with a group of septuagenarians who solve murders. It was, by turns, poignant and funny, and I can't read to read the rest.

 The Man who Died Twice by Richard Osman: So I immediately got the second from the library! Osman does a good job balancing the silly (elderly Joyce's new instagram handle is @greatjoy69) and the melancholy (a random assault drastically affects Ibrahim). I will be requesting the next volume soon.

Stumptown by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth: What a pleasant surprise to find this in my local Little Free Library! It's a comic book series centered on Dex, a troubled private detective in Portland, Oregon. My husband and I adored the show not just for its acting and stories, but also the presence of Anselm, Dex's brother with Down Syndrome. I'm still mad they canceled it after one season.

 

New Threads

 DMC recently came out with a line of wool threads dyed with natural substances, and I found them irresistible. I bought a set of 30 colors (needs more purple), and promptly sat down with all my crewel embroidery books to look for patterns; I settled on Catherine Shaughnessy's The New Crewel and The New Crewel: the Motif Collection. From the former I selected three floral designs and put them together on linen:

Those colors are lovely (not sure about that coral, though), but there was a gorgeous red I wanted to stitch with so I picked a sunflower design from The Motif Collection. It reminds me of the spirograph toy I had as a child; fun!

For this I used a feedsack dish cloth (new, not vintage).

I've yet to fully finish them (I think I will stretch the wildflower trio onto a canvas), but my woolly stitch itch has been satisfied. For now.

Spring Flowers

 I've been working on this on and off for the last few months. I started it in February, when I was desperately craving pretty colors and lovely flowers:

I used pearl cotton and silk ribbons on gingham fabric; I'm currently loving the interplay between organic stitching on checked fabric, and I am keeping an eye out for a gingham blouse I can embroider. In the meantime, this will do.

Bead Candy Eggs

Cath Thomas has a wonderful modification of her bolas tutorial to make beaded stripey Easter eggs. So of course I made a bunch (you can't stop at one!), playing around with colors and sizes: 

 I've got decades of experience in mentally flipping stitching instructions from left to right, because I'm a lefty in a world of righties. But this tutorial defeated me; there was no way I could figure out the join until I finally turned my beadwork inside out to force it to match the images in the tutorial.  The zipping up, though, is the best part 😍.

Spring!

 Cherry blossoms are beautiful and I wanted to make a little hoop of them:

I free-styled a branch with snippets of brown wool felt, then cut little flowers out of pale and very pale pink wool-blend felt and stitched them down with dark pink stitches. As soon as I find a wooden 5-inch hoop I will rehoop it, and maybe iron the cotton fabric, haha.

I work on this little hoop every spring, choosing a couple of the blooming trees and bushes in my neighborhood to represent:

Most recently I stitched the cherry blossoms and large yellow flowers at the bottom, above the pink knots. 

I'm lucky to live in such a pretty neighborhood.

Book Round-up

The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi: This was an interesting novel -- a mathematician devises seven necessary conditions for a mystery and writes seven short stories to illustrate them before disappearing from the public eye. Eventually a young editor seeks him out to get his permission for a reissue, and the novel consists of the seven stories alternating with their conversations about them. There are, of course, twists to be had and secrets to be revealed. It serves as a minimalist contrast to the maximalist Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone, which elaborated the (technically unnecessary) tropes that populate most mysteries.

The Little Village of Book Lovers by Nina George: an unexpected treat mailed to me by an acquaintance. That it was a sweet paean to good books and a simple life was a given; that it was also wise and funny was not. It's magical realism, too, so of course this was perfect for me.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery: my next (out of order) purchase to replace my tattered paperbacks. As an adult I have a newfound appreciation for both Montgomery's characterizations and her sense of humor.

The Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman: I didn't love these as much as the earlier ones; too much time spent with the bad guys and not enough for Bernadette Manuelito to do. I did enjoy it, though.