Fiddling While Rome Burns

Owing to the two midterm exams that are due at the end of this weekend (as of this moment one complete and one half complete) I have not had much time to stitch, but I did accomplish a bit on Dot's Garden (not worth showing), and this little bit on Praiseworthy Stitches' "Skating Party." Because I changed the color of the fabric (to Lakeside's Patina), I've changed some of the floss colors. And although there are red beads that go with the border leaves, I decided the design needed a bit more flair. So I have added silvery blue Kreinik blending filament to the greeny-blue frozen lake. Not sure if you can see the sparkle in this photo. Stitching a winter scene now seems odd; remember the eight inches of snow in that last picture of my garden just six days ago? Gone now, replaced by temps in the high seventies yesterday and today. The buds are all bursting out on the trees, the birds are tweeting outside my window, the wild bunnies are digging up my bulbs and chewing the emerging tulip leaves.

I websurfed a bit the other day and bought this chart: "Christinia Cathcart" by the Samplar Workes. I also picked up a few charts on ebay. Oh, and for all of you who might be a Theron Traditions fan, she's teaching a class with a beautiful new sampler at Celebration of Needlework in May. Check out her new sampler! It's called "Morning has Broken," and if you're old enough, that title alone will be enough to send the Cat Stevens song circling endlessly through your brain. I figured out that since I didn't have time to stitch at lunch or after work or all weekend, this bit of shopping made me feel better and calmer.

We had sweeping layoffs at work last week--125 people in our firm nationwide, and approximately 30 in our office. I'm still there, but several friends were cut. It was pretty brutal; the person's manager called them into a private meeting late Thursday, their building badge was confiscated, their email and phone were cut off as of that moment, they were walked back to their desk to get their coat and purse and then they were sent out the door, which is now locked against them. Someone from HR will go through their desk and cube and will box up and send their personal stuff to them. As you can imagine, the rest of us are beginning to remove our personal stuff and take it home because you never know, in the same way that those of us who work in highrises in major cities after 9/11 made sure always to have comfortable walking shoes and a bottle of water that we could grab in case we were evacuated down the stairs and had to walk partway home. I feel terrible for some of the affected people, who believed that the firm would look out for them, were devastated when they were cut.

I picked this up at Everything Cross Stitch recently: It's "Alphabetissimo" by Papillon Creations. What I especially like about this chart is the designer's suggestion to use any two colors of your choosing. I prefer the blue to the red, so I'm going to reverse the colors, and will use the Picture This Plus fabric and NPI silks from my stash. I so much wanted to start this--I've missed stitching this week! Oh, well, next week! And, I'll be headed to Cape Cod in less than two weeks to visit my parents. I should get some stitching done there; one of the best thing about my parents is that they enjoy sitting quietly in the evening doing crossword puzzles or reading or knitting (in my mom's case), so I can stitch away. I could really use a big bowl of quahog chowder from the fish market too!

I'm reading in a couple of blogs about stitchers working on "Dutch Beauty" with its little poo-ing dog. Hilarious. From now on, I think I should use french knots for rabbit doots on my charts with bunnies.

"Doots? I always use the litter box!"

Happy Week Ahead; may any surprises be pleasant ones...