dianec42

Borrowing a page from a local introvert friend: Without some outside impetus, it honestly does not occur to me to leave the house.

Luckily, yesterday I was planning on going to the 2:00 open knit/craft session at the local yarn shop, and the aforementioned friend texted to say she was going to the 5:30 session. My brain defaulted to "go out, come back, go out again" when Mr Diane sensibly pointed out I could just go out and stay out.

So in no particular order, yesterday I:
socialized
had tea
got a TON done on my out-and-about stitching project
went to the library
chatted with my friend who works at the library
am now on HER list for a Friday museum outing Real Soon Now (tm)
told several people about the upcoming Paul Simon concert & am assembling a MASSIVE posse for same
went to the quilting store, chatted with the owner about hand quilting, bought supplies for same
browsed at Goodwill (did not buy anything)
shopped at Ocean State Job Lot (bought a purple sweatshirt and some almonds which I ate in the car)
accidentally happened on a not-normally-scheduled movie night at the yarn shop
petted the shop dog (Winston) lots
had cake
had random potluck foods brought by folks who DID know about movie night
sang along to Wicked For Good

and somehow utterly failed to send a postcard to a work friend for his kid's school (they're trying to get a postcard from every state)

Why am I sitting inside playing WoW again?

Tuesday I went to yoga. Wednesday I went to the "open knit" at the yarn store in town & started a new cross stitch(*). Thursday I did NOT go to free yoga at the library, because it was insanely nice out, so Mr Diane and I went hiking. Today I had a Zoom call with an old work friend.

Next week things in the big world will slow down due to the holiday. Next Friday we're having some friends over for Boxing Day, so there will be a great deal of snack prep and the concomitant cleaning-up.

I suspect my "doing nothing" is not the same as everyone else's "doing nothing", but why be normal?

(*) This is my "out and about" cross stitch project. It involves only whole stitches, is very high contrast, and as such does not require a ton of brainpower or super-good light. Most of all, it does not have any "difficult bits" so the odds that I will actually finish it are extremely high.

I'm doing the Autumn installment of an art nouveau set from about 2003. Unfortunately it was originally designed using Anchor threads and the DMC conversion is not very good. Two of the shades of yellow are basically identical, so I've been working on a substitution and may yet redo Spring. If I start redoing things I have a similar complaint about 2 of the shades of green in Summer... and should probably also use higher-quality fabric (I'm using a piece of Charles Craft aida which is shockingly badly off-grain).

Come to think of it I did also buy some stuff at the quilt shop on Wednesday (Q-snap extenders and a skein of DMC 973 which turns out the be ENTIRELY unsuited for the hoped-for purpose). I also tried but failed to score a smaller embroidery hoop (haven't seen my 8" q-snaps WHICH ARE PERFECT FOR THIS PROJECT since I moved). So the new project is living in an 11" q-snap square for the moment which is not ideal.

When the cats are quiescent, I get to work on cross stitchI made some progress on Upon A Star, including a couple of actual stars. Most importantly, now I can count from the top down instead of bottom up, which is a relief.

I made a tiny bit more progress on Upon A Star. I’ve been super burnt out lately, but there is a weekly Reddit thread where people show off their WIPs so I was moved to spend some time on this today.

Thursday I walked into town and successfully bought additional embroidery floss. I love having small businesses nearby that I can support & that have things I need.

As it was written in the spreadsheets, so it has come to pass.

New project: Upon A Star by PigeonCoop Designs from the book Cross Stitch In The Forest.

Have I learned my lesson about dark Aida, many similar shades of one colour, and fractional stitches? No. Have I learned to check HOW MUCH of each shade I'll need when using threads from my stash? Also no.

Floss toss to confirm I still like the colors:


The first few stitches.


First project to clear off the backlog: 1960s mod lady for the cover of my sewing notebook. There will be text "Sewing Notes" vertically in the blank area on the right. I did the French knots for the eyes a while ago and they have gone horribly wrong - the knots have both pulled through to the back! Lesson learned, don't do french knots as part of a tour of traveling backstitch. I am just going to do new knots over the top of them.


Bonus, I found the missing small Permin kit tucked away in the folder with the mod fashion lady! I guess this was my emergency backup stitching when we moved. Way to go, Past Diane! You put it in a safe place all right.

I just made a spreadsheet of all of my cross stitch works in progress that I can think of, and sorted them by "joy quotient" and then by effort remaining. Ta dahh! I have prioritized my backlog.

I gave each WIP two numbers from 1-10: How satisfying would it be to finish this (higher number is good), and how much effort remains (lower number is good). "Joy quotient" is satisfaction divided by effort.

I should probably do something similar with my spreadsheet of planned projects, although "planned" is really too strong a word. Yes, I have separate sheets for kits and charts. No, I have not catalogued every chart I own (we would be here until the heat death of the universe and probably also crash Excel); just the ones I have formed some vague intention of doing and/or have purchased materials for.

Parting thought, any kits I bought before about 1995 should almost certainly get yeeted. (Yotted? Yeeten?)


Edited to add: I did this for my backlog of charts and it came out sorted perfectly by effort (easiest at the top of the list). Hahahahaha.

I made the list of kits from memory and I have a terrible feeling that in reality I have tons more than I think I do. This is already discounting things like the pile of beginner kits I bought to teach my coworkers at game night in 2020 (RIP).


Edit edit: Strictly speaking these are UFOs (UnFinished Objects) rather than true WIPs. My one actual work in progress is Deer Trail and that's nearly done.

I got to drive with the sunroof open for the first time this year!!

Took Friday off, drove a few hours, did a ton of shopping, then went to the Celebration of Needlework. Did some stitching, hung out with an old friend and some new friends, got lots of walking and fresh air and good food. Oh and did more shopping. Because I need more projects!

Best of all, I have achieved PANTS.

... is cross stitching.

Recently finished the 4th (of 4) Christmas Pusheens. Still working on Mill Hill Haunted Graveyard. Started a new one from the book "Cross Stitch in the Forest" by (I am not making this up) Max Pigeon of PigeonCoop Designs.

I got (most of) the purples done. I discovered some dark purple just below the bits I've finished. I also did quite a bit of nigh-indistinguishable pastels. Then I started doing dark brown on black and vowed never to complain about pastels again:



Now comes the black on black. There are some black stitches here, I swear there are. This is going to take a really long time.