Enemy of Entropy
New Year’s Eve
I hate coming up with titles. Can you tell?
Happy New Year to all of you. I hope to see more of you in person this year!
I’m still not feeling well at all, so I haven’t been online much. Despite that, my wrists have been aching as if I were working again. How does that happen?
Our Yule was quietly pleasant. I hope your winter holiday was as good.
I did finally finish stitching the Fairy Tale Sampler for Sam. It didn’t take that much stitching (so it can’t be blamed for the wrist pain), but I did have to re-purchase some Mill Hill beads. That gave me an excuse (like I needed it) to talk to Susan of Nease’s Needlework, which is always lovely. But now it’s finished!
My camera battery won’t recharge anymore, so I’ll have to convince the girl to take a photo of the piece for me.
I think I’m finally ready to do Deep Peace. It’s a gorgeous piece, and some people I love dearly got all the supplies for it as a gift for me a few years back. Unfortunately, we broke up right after that, and every time I started to work on it, I cried. I think there’s been enough time now that I can focus on the happy memories instead of the hard stuff.
I think I need to start a smaller project, too, that I can carry around with me. Complex projects don’t lend themselves to productivity while doing anything else, anyway. Sam tends to get me so interested in gaming that I can’t get much stitching done. Multi-person games are better for needlework, because I stitch while the focus is on someone else.
I’m not really into New Year’s Resolutions, and if I made them seriously, I’d be more likely to do so at Samhain than the end of January/beginning of December. Still, I’ve been realizing how much I’ve missed needlework. My eyes are still giving me trouble, but I got out an old, portable magnifier/travel light and that helps. I think it may be worthwhile to check into a magnifier attachment for my Ott Lite (after getting new glasses). I’m going to try stitching more regularly, and I’d really like to learn needlepoint and knitting and/or crocheting. I think I can manage the needlepoint on my own, but not the yarn stuff. Hopefully I can find someone local who is willing to teach me. Apparently there’s a group meeting at a local library that may be a possibility.
I thought my DMC was getting too old for use or something, because it kept fraying apart while I was stitching. I finally realized (after buying 3 new skeins of black floss) that I’d been using those needles that doesn’t require threading (which I love), and that they stress the floss (and the floss slips out easily). I switched back to a regular tapestry needle and presto! the problem was gone. I can’t find those no-thread needles anywhere online, so I guess other folks figured that out far more quickly than I did! I have a two-sided needle that came with a magazine or some such, but I don’t know that I can quite figure out how to use it.
Sam and I are staying in this evening, avoiding all the obnoxious drunks in favor of our own celebration. The girl is here, too, because her beau is in Europe with his family and most of her other friends are also out of town (something about a Flaming Lips concert?).
After getting caught up with all the shows I enjoy, I went looking for something else to view. I enjoy Bones, but I find the sizist comments (and plots) highly offensive. I tried to watch the first episode of The Mentalist online, but it keeps timing out. Sam got the first disc of The Tudors from Netflix, and it’s interesting at times. I tend to get annoyed with the liberties they’ve taken with history, though.
SBQ: Stitching Publications
The Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week:
Do you currently subscribe to any stitching publications or have you in the past? (Either in print or online) If so, which ones?
I don’t subscribe to any at the moment, and I rarely buy them off the rack. I have hundreds of them in my stash, and I keep meaning to go through and just keep the designs I’m still planning to stitch, but I never get around to doing it! I stopped buying them because I realized that I haven’t ever stitched one single pattern in any of those hundreds of magazines.
Read on…
SBQ: Stitching Terms/Acronyms
This week’s Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week:
For seasoned stitchers: Define a stitching term or acronym for new
stitchers.
Gah. I don’t play in the needlework newsgroup any more, so I don’t think in acronyms. Railroading is the only term that I can think of that wasn’t obvious or explained in a pattern’s instructions. There’s a decent explanation here, and an article with good photos here.
SBQ: Family Heirlooms
And another Stitching Blogger Question of the week, which should leave me all caught up:
Do you have any pieces that you would liked passed on to future
generations as family heirlooms?
At one time, I thought so. My mother has a Tigerlily piece I did for her, and my father has a big Marine Corps Emblem that hangs in his office. Unfortunately, the first piece I ever framed and gave to them suffered smoke damage, and I haven’t been able to get it completely clean yet. They haven’t expressed any interest in having it back, either. Mom stuck another piece I did and gave to her in a drawer, and forgot that I’d done it at all.
Some of the pieces I did for my first husband’s family, like a baby sampler and a nice serving tray, may get passed on. Maybe. They may have gotten rid of them because of the association with an ex-spouse. Who knows?
SBQ: Blended Threads
And another Stitching Blogger Question:
I can’t remember the last time I did a piece that used blended threads. Obviously, I haven’t gotten around to stitching anything by Teresa Wentzler 
When I’ve had to use them, I just blend them as the need arises. I keep most of my threads (DMC, definitely) on plastic bobbins, so when I start a project I gather all the colors required and put them on a metal ring. As I cut a length, I wind whatever I didn’t use back on the bobbin for later use, to avoid waste.
