Reading, watching, stitching
May. 29th, 2022 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dianec42Prefacing the reading and watching with "I don't know if it's the piece or if it's me, but..."
I finished the third Lady Astronaut book. The ending was reasonably satisfying. The first 10% I was very grumpy that she switched narrators from the first 2 books, to a character who I don't even like that much. The middle 80% I was basically waiting for something, ANYTHING, good to happen to these people. A lot of the events were just a little too on-the-nose with real life to be at all enjoyable. Oh well. I persevered! I'm glad I've read it, but I'm now in the mood for something lighter.
We've started watching season 4 of Stranger Things. 3 episodes in, it's not really doing much for me. There's nothing really novel going on, and the bits where The Kids Are In High School Now And Are Trying To Fit In are fucking excruciating. If Stuart wants to keep watching it I'll play along, but I'm finding it rather grim and joyless.
On the joyful and not-grim side of the aisle...
Stitching! Having finished Peeking Cats, my main criteria for what to do next were "smaller" and "absolutely no backstitch". Also, fuck fractionals on Aida.
I've started the third piece in a set, "Art Nouveau Seasons" by Sheila Hudson from the Christmas 2003 issue of Cross Stitcher magazine (UK). I've already done Winter and Summer and am now doing Spring. It's daffodils, and although I don't really care for yellow at all, I thought I'd get it out of the way so I can reward myself with Autumn which is grapes and thus has Many Purples in it. It's very soothing to be working on something blocky and less fiddly. I am not pleased with all of her color choices, as some of them are so close together as to be nearly indistinguishable, but the results are so pretty it's hard to argue. As a bonus, this gave me something simple to record some footage of. (It's surprisingly hard to video yourself cross stitching. Who knew?)
I'm sad that I didn't save more of Sheila Hudson's patterns. She passed away some years ago and I don't think her works have ever been collected and published. I have this set and a really nifty repeating-motif Oriental dragon in magenta and gold shades that I might do someday.
Sorry I'm so bad about posting photos here. I'll see what I can do.
I finished the third Lady Astronaut book. The ending was reasonably satisfying. The first 10% I was very grumpy that she switched narrators from the first 2 books, to a character who I don't even like that much. The middle 80% I was basically waiting for something, ANYTHING, good to happen to these people. A lot of the events were just a little too on-the-nose with real life to be at all enjoyable. Oh well. I persevered! I'm glad I've read it, but I'm now in the mood for something lighter.
We've started watching season 4 of Stranger Things. 3 episodes in, it's not really doing much for me. There's nothing really novel going on, and the bits where The Kids Are In High School Now And Are Trying To Fit In are fucking excruciating. If Stuart wants to keep watching it I'll play along, but I'm finding it rather grim and joyless.
On the joyful and not-grim side of the aisle...
Stitching! Having finished Peeking Cats, my main criteria for what to do next were "smaller" and "absolutely no backstitch". Also, fuck fractionals on Aida.
I've started the third piece in a set, "Art Nouveau Seasons" by Sheila Hudson from the Christmas 2003 issue of Cross Stitcher magazine (UK). I've already done Winter and Summer and am now doing Spring. It's daffodils, and although I don't really care for yellow at all, I thought I'd get it out of the way so I can reward myself with Autumn which is grapes and thus has Many Purples in it. It's very soothing to be working on something blocky and less fiddly. I am not pleased with all of her color choices, as some of them are so close together as to be nearly indistinguishable, but the results are so pretty it's hard to argue. As a bonus, this gave me something simple to record some footage of. (It's surprisingly hard to video yourself cross stitching. Who knew?)
I'm sad that I didn't save more of Sheila Hudson's patterns. She passed away some years ago and I don't think her works have ever been collected and published. I have this set and a really nifty repeating-motif Oriental dragon in magenta and gold shades that I might do someday.
Sorry I'm so bad about posting photos here. I'll see what I can do.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-30 05:56 am (UTC)Did you read the short story that was written before the books, but takes place after the 3rd book?
https://www.tor.com/2013/09/11/the-lady-astronaut-of-mars/
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2022-05-30 09:36 pm (UTC)Stranger Things, well, not grabbing me a lot two episodes in but I'm willing to go along for the ride (particularly since Claudia's up for watching it). I've got some predictions for things happening later in the season because we know that El turn out to be the hero not the villain of that whole cold open in Episode 1, and that the 'stand and reach and yell and nothing happens' will absolutely have a payoff where it *does* work - my guess is that after one or two failed tries we'll get a little twitch of motion and then BOOM it'll work on the third try (probably while the annoying evil girls are either involved somehow or in visual range, but that's not a given), and I see we've gone from Billy as 'discount-bin Rob Lowe stand-in' to the lead jock as 'discount-bin Tom Cruise (but lighter hair) stand-in.' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
no subject
Date: 2022-05-31 01:13 pm (UTC)I really struggle with school dramas, most of them are unwatchable for me (Sex Education was a great exception). Even when the school is there as background for other story, I just didn't enjoy hanging out with people that age when I was that age, why would I want to do it now?