Nothing to See Here

Friday must be my day to be lazy. Possibly it's all part of some macro schedule I'm on, but Friday afternoons seem to be my day to get under the covers and sleep away the afternoon. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had breakfast with Sue. When she and I parted, I'd planned to go to the grocery store, but then realized I'd forgotten my coupons. So, I headed for home first, and then, on to the grocery store. While at home, I spent a little more time on my embroidery project, and so it was nearly noon when I reached the grocery store parking lot. Oh. My. Gosh. The parking lot alone was mobbed. I could only imagine the mayhem inside. It was tempting to turn around and go back home, but we were nearly out of kitty treats, and well...say no more. We do have our priorities.

So I managed to get through the store in record time. Only a few other shoppers were mowed down by my shopping cart. They were all able to get up on their own, and so no worries. And the grocery store always takes every last bit of energy I can muster, so I got under the covers...head and all...and took a nap when I got home. And it was so warm and cozy that I just stayed there for most of the afternoon. Besides, Sadie was holding me down. With all of that, there was no sewing at all. Only sleeping. With cats. All was well.

This morning I worked some more on Tree #8. I worked the fishbone stitch on all the little green leaves. The little leaves are so tiny, the fishbone kind of gets lost. You'd be able to see it with a magnifying glass.

I'll say right here that I'm really glad to be using the Frixion pen on this piece. The designs are so small that tracing them with my fat point pen has been nearly as challenging as stitching them. If you look closely, you can see the tracing lines showing around some of the stitching lines because the designs are not traced finely enough. I've been fudging and making them work as I go along. The good news is that those lines will disappear once they're hit with the hot iron. I'm aware that Mary Corbett is doing another similar series of her snowflake Christmas ornaments. When I start that series, I'll probably bag the whole tracing thing and use Sticky Fabri-Solvy. It has its own challenges, but I believe it will be easier than tracing out the fine designs.

When I had the leaves all stitched, I made breakfast. But then I was terribly curious to see the next new stitch, which is the ribbed spider web stitch. So I stitched the first one, and hey...that wasn't hard at all!

I was just about to explain how the stitch is done here, but I'll just post Mary Corbett's video demonstration. It's much easier to watch than to explain.

I was kind of tired of stitching for the morning, and so I'll finish off the rest tomorrow. There are some beads on this one too. The original design uses a white French knot in the center of the red flowers, but I'm going to put a transparent bead there if I can. We'll see tomorrow when I try it.

Today I'll get back to the Mulligan Stew quilt. I'll be working on the borders, and I'm hoping to get well along. It's doubtful I can finish it today, but possibly I'll have it finished by tomorrow.