Listopad / November

Listopad daje mi się we znaki. Chciałabym czuć się tak:

November is difficult for me this year. I'd like to feel like that:

Ale ostatnio częściej mój nastrój maluje się tak:

But I've been feeling like that recently:

Przez dwa tygodnie miałam jakiś problem z logistyką - wycięłam wszystkie elementy szarej sukienki z plisami, ale nie mogłam jej szyć, bo nie miałam nitki. I co pojawiałam się obok pasmanterii, to oczywiście nie miałam ze sobą kawałeczka szarej wełenki, żeby dobrać odpowiedni odcień nitki...

Na szczęście wreszcie przełamałam tę zła passę i mam już nitkę i suwak, i prace nad sukienką powinny ruszyć w tym tygodniu.

Szyję też drugą rzecz z materiałów wygrzebanych z pobabcinych zapasów - jak mi się uda, to się pochwalę, a jak nie - to przynajmniej powiem, co chciałam uszyć. ^^*~~

For the past two weeks I had some logistics problems - I cut out the parts of the pleated dress's I planned to sew but I didn't have a piece of fabric on me when I went to craft shop for the thread. Luckily I finally managed to buy the thread and the zipper so I hope to start sewing this week.
I also started to sew something else from the stash fabric - I'll share it when it's a success, and when it's not  - I'll just tell you what it was. ^^*~~

Za to dzięki Kasi i poratowaniu mnie dodatkowym kłębkiem włóczki (cmok! *^o^*) skończyłam turkusowy sweter.

Thanks to Kasia and the yarn skein she sent me I managed to finish knitting the pullover.

Model: Cozy V-neck Pullover
Angora Ram, 300 g
4 mm

Mam co do niego mieszane uczucia - był w mojej kolejce na Ravelry od lat bo spodobał mi się na zdjęciu towarzyszącym wzorowi, na modelce o chłopięcych kształtach, bez biustu i bioder, a ja jedno i drugie posiadam, i jeszcze nie wiem, czy sweterek podoba mi się na mnie. 

I have mixed feelings about this pullover - I loved it when I saw the photo accompanying the pattern, but the model there has quite a different shape - no bust of hips, and I do have them so I'm not sure yet whether I like how this sweater undulates on me. I must give it some time.

Kasia sprezentowała mi jeszcze jedną rzecz - męską koszulę w drobniutkie paseczki, z przeznaczeniem na lalkową sukienkę. Takie wzory są szczególnie cenne, bo drobne motywy ładnie wyglądają w lalkowej skali. Jednak zdecydowałam, że koszula zostaje w mojej szafie, bo jest mi niezbędna do zakładania pod turkusowy sweter! *^v^*

Koszulę skróciłam i zwęziłam z zaznaczeniem talii, natomiast większym problemem okazał się karczek - tkanina na karczku miała skazy, jakby była podrapana i pozaciągana. Ponieważ nie miałam nadmiaru materiału na wymianę karczka, postanowiłam spróbować ukryć ten problem pod haftem i tak to się obecnie prezentuje:

Kasia gave me another present - man's shirt with thin stripes, to be turned into doll's dress. Such tiny patterns are good for dolls because they look more natural in patterns scaled for their size. But I decided to keep this shirt for myself because I needed it to wear under the turqoise pullover! *^v^*
I shortened it and gave it a fitted line at the sides but it had another problem - the fabric on the neckline had some flaws so I decided to try and hide it with embroidered motif. It now looks like that:

Nie jest idealnie ale wzrok bardziej zatrzymuje się na haftowanych kwiatach niż na skazie na tkaninie, i o to chodziło. Wzór naszkicowałam odręcznie a haft zrobiłam pojedynczymi nitkami bawełnianej muliny.  (Teraz mi się wydaje, że powinnam była użyć cieńszych nici jedwabnych, ale nie miałam ich pod ręką, a chciałam skończyć prace nad koszulą i mieć ją gotową do noszenia.)

It's not perfect but the sight keeps wandering on the embroidery and tends to omit the fabric's flaws. I made the flower sketch and I used the single threads of the cotton mouline. (Now I think I should have used thinner silk thread but I didn't have it and I wanted to finish this shirt and wear it already.)

Zrobiłam też na szybko rękawiczki dla męża, bo poprzednie gdzieś się zagubiły, a mężowi marzną paluszki, kiedy rano jedzie rowerem do pracy.

I also made a pair of handwarmers for my husband because he lost the previous pair, and he needs them for morning travels to work on the bike.

Użyłam tego wzoru z jedną modyfikacją -  cztery razy próbowałam zrobić Linen Ridge Stitch opisany we wzorze i cztery razy nie wyszło mi nic podobnego do tego, co widać na zdjęciach ilustrujących wzór. Nie wiem, co było powodem, łapałam oczka na różne sposoby, szukałam filmów instruktażowych (nie ma), znalazłam na różnych forach pytania o ten ścieg ale nie znalazłam odpowiedzi, więc w końcu poddałam się i zastąpiłam go podwójnym ryżem. Życie jest zbyt krótkie, żeby zatruwał je nieudający się ścieg na rękawiczkach! *^v^*

I used this pattern with one modification - I tried to knit Linen Ridge Stitch four times and each time I achieved something completely different from the photos from the pattern. I have no idea what went wrong, I tried different ways of knitting, I looked for the filmed instructions (there are none), I found questions about that stitch but no answers and finally I just gave up and changed it into the Double Moss stitch. Life's too short to be bothered by the knitting stitch! *^v^*

Co teraz na drutach?

Zaczynam sukienkę. Zaczynam sweterek. Zaczynam tajemniczy projekt wymyślony od zera przeze mnie. 

What's now on my needles?

I've started a dress. I've started another pullover. I've started a new project designed by me.

Podobno możemy zmieniać rzeczywistość siłą naszego umysłu i pozytywnego myślenia. Idę walczyć z listopadem, zamierzam często patrzeć na to zdjęcie i wyobrażać sobie takie skakanie do góry, żeby więcej w nim było takich moich dni:

They say you can change the reality around you just with positive thinking. I'm going to fight with November, I will look at that photo often and imagine jumping up with joy so I have more days like that:

新しいセーターと夫に手袋を編みました。今セーターとワンピと秘密のプロジェクトを編みます。私も桜の刺繍をしました。
今年、11月は難しくて悲しいです。幸せになりたいです。

Sashiko I

Mój pierwszy haft sashiko gotowy. Myślałam, że skończę szyć torbę z jego udziałem w weekend, ale miałam takie zamieszanie czasowo-przestrzenne, że dziękuję... Dzisiaj doszyłam uszy i prezentuję efekt końcowy.

My first sashiko embroidery has been finished. I thought I'd turn it into a bag during the weekend but I was so incredibly busy, phew.... Today I added the handles.

Wybrałam dość skomplikowany motyw - wariację na temat tradycyjnego wzoru shippō i rysowałam okręgi białą kredką na bieżąco w trakcie wyszywania bo szybko się ścierały podczas operowania tkaniną, więc nie było sensu narysować wzoru na całą powierzchnię od razu.

I chose a fairly complicated motif - a type of traditional shippō pattern and I was adding the circles as I went on. The white crayon I used got easily removed while I was handling the fabric so there was no point in drawing the whole pattern at once.

Niestety, zaowocowało to małym "rozjechaniem się" motywów, co sprytnie ukryłam pod zewnętrzną kieszonką. *^v^* Następnym razem przeszyję materiał kilkoma nitkami pomocniczymi, które pomogą mi utrzymać poszczególne motywy wzoru na swoich miejscach. Nie jest łatwo pracować z ciemną tkaniną i białą kredką, która szybko znika... ^^

Unfortunately, some circles went sideways but I cleverly hid them under the pocket. *^v^* Next time I'll make some lifelines with some thread and they will serve me as a guide to keep the pattern in place. It's not easy to work with dark fabric and white chalky crayon. ^^

Mam już w planach kolejne hafty - chcę dorobić kosmetyczkę do tej torby, być może uszyć inny lepiej przemyślany model torby. Kusi mnie kilka motywów - fale, kwiaty sakury, inne okręgi. Znalazłam na dnie szafy resztki pięknego cienkiego jeansu w kolorze indygo, białą nić mam, nic tylko zabierać się za kolejne hafty! *^v^*

I already have plans for next projects - I want to make the small clutch, maybe another bigger bag. I am tempted by some motives - waves, sakura flowers, other cirle patterns. I found some think indigo jeans in my stash that I could use, I still have a lot of white thread, so I may start even today! *^v^*

Finished and started

Rho, that's true that there is nothing to beat some good old horseradish, especially with a homemade pate (pasztet) or smoked ham (my father made some himself this year). And the cheesecake is a must - the very traditional version, a thin layer of a shortcake topped with cheese with raisins, yummy (not the raisins, I don't like them and I always leave them out! ^^).

Over the weekend I finished the "Burgundian Dance" tapestry and I'm sending it to Helene tomorrow. ^^
The pattern comes from an old issue of "Anna" craft magazine, the technique is a cross stitch, I used cotton mouline on cotton fabric and the size of the finished picture is 37 cm x 62 cm (plus some fabric for mounting).

What's next? The anklets from the leftover yarn I used for my Opal socks - they are almost ready, I've knitted past the heel on one sock and I'll knit the heel on the other today, and then there will be several rows above the heel to fish them. I decided that in order to avoid the 'second sock syndrome' it's easier for me to work on both socks almost simultaneously, and not knit one completely and then start another one. ^^

And I'll be starting soon a very serious commission - my friend asked me to knit for him a pair of knee-high socks based on the medieval Muslim socks. It will be a challenge for me because I once started to knit these for myself (I have the pattern in Nancy Bush's Folk Socks), but I didn't get much far past the heel in the first sock - the size was too small for my ankles, so I frogged some of it, felted it and turned it into a nice cellphone cozy! *^v^*
But this time I'm going to approach this pattern again and it'll be a real challenge because my friend is a man with big feet and wide calves, so I'll have some serious stitches calculating to do. I'm buying yarn tomorrow. ^^

Green Minded Witch
Inspired by many wonderful blogs about eco-friendly, frugal living I decided to keep adding some "green" tips, ideas and links from time to time in the posts under the label of the Green Minded Witch. (Living in a big city, I'm not very eco-friendly, but I'm trying to be.) I don't intend to preach but to give some hints from my own experience which can be useful to some of you, as they turned out useful for me. ^^
I'm going to start today with something simple and obvious, or is it really?
Laundry detergent.
I used to buy bottles of it and use it in "splash" quantities. By this I mean I just opened my washing machine, splashed some of the washing liquid into one drawer, splashed some of the softener into the other drawer, closed it and turned it on.
Of course in this way I used much too much of it, especially when I had those concentrated detergents, and I had to buy more of them quickly.
Then one day I applied the famous RTFM rule* - I turned the bottle and checked the amount of the liquid that was suggested for a 5 kilo washing - and it was a surprisingly small amount! Much smaller than my "splash"! Now I know what the caps on those bottles are for - these are the measuring devices! ^^ (okay, I knew it before, but just didn't pay attention to them...)
It's really worth to overcome our laziness and have a look at the manufacturer's dosage suggestions, because:
- you use exactly the amount needed for a single washing, so the bottle lasts longer,
- the bottle lasts longer so you buy another one only when you really need it,
ergo
- you save money, because you spend it less often
- in general you use less detergent (less of it goes down the pipes and into the environment)
Isn't it a nice result? *^v^*

And some green minded links for you:
Stop the Ride by Stephanie, very inspiring blog about frugal life
Sew Green, a blog by several green-minded artists,
Another Woman's Treasure by Celeste
10 Commandments for a Simpler Way of life

BTW, if you want to take part in my bloggiversary giveaway there is still time to leave the comment on the giveaway post - I'll be drawing the winner on 12th April and the prize pool grew from just a cross-stiched sheep to some additional surprises! *^v^*

* RTFM - Read The F(ascinating) Manual, as my hubby says! *^v^*

Get crafty!

Rho, I would definitely add a cable on the right side of the shawl, it looks somehow... unfinished (but that's just me ^^).
In fact, thank you very much for mentioning this shawl because this is a good shawl pattern for Ambermoggie - no chart! *^v^* Here is the link: Dipsy's Cable-Lace-Scarf. (Btw, Ambermoggie, I sent you my address last night but I'm not sure whether I have the right e-mail to you, so please let me know if you got it. ^^)

And now let's see what I've been making last weekend and finishing on Monday:
- new products for the folk gallery: felt embroidered rabbits that can be used as the egg warmers and fabric bread baskets (I love them and I'm going to make more of them!). I'm sending them to the folk gallery today and keep your fingers crossed (if they sell, these are my new yarn funds, yikes! *^v^*)



Look what I found yesterday! *^v^*
I found it in my fabric stash (you cannot remember all the fabrics you have, can you?... ^^), I must have bought it some time ago, on the on-line auction, as I recall correctly, this is a piece of a printed cotton just in a perfect size for a pillow. I'm going to embroider it and add the back from some other cotton, and dress one of my naked pillows (I have three pillows waiting for some covers).

Gudrun Sjoden's Spring collection is in the shops right now and I must say that I would wear EVERY ONE piece from it! In any colour. I gave you here just a few pictures of her Spring clothes, mainly in the shades of red, but there are many naturals, blues, blacks and browns, too. All are beautiful, all are from natural fabrics (cottons, linens, viscose, wool, silk), all are too pricey for me unfortunately... But at least I can get some inspiration from them - I browsed my linens and cottons yesterday and matched some of them to make myself blouses and dresses in a similar style (embroidered, of course! ^^).
Enjoy and make sure to visit her site for more!

Bloggiversary giveaway

Everybody's doing it, so I decided that I would also like to have my own One-Year-And-A-Month-Blogging-Anniversary giveaway! The prize will be a cross-stitch picture of a sheep (who would have thought?... *^v^*) and some additional surprises.
What to do to take part in it? Just leave a comment on this post between today and the 11th April, and on April 12th I'll draw a winner (from my husband's wedding tophat! *^v^*).

Last night I finished the Morning Surf scarf for my mother and I decided that I had enough of this pattern for a while, so now I'll be off to something new, maybe cables? I have an urge to frog the sweater I bought some time ago in a thrift shop (just for the yarn, but then I wanted to wear it so it stayed with me in his original form, but now I'm having a change of heart again... ^^) and turn it into a cabled shawl. We'll see about that.

No pictures of what crafts I've been doing lately because... I'm still working on them today. ^^ I hope tomorrow I''ll finish everything and I'll be able to show you the results, and tomorrow I will also write about the new Spring collection of Gudrun Sjoden's (I got the catalog last night).
For now my growing tomatoes! *^v^*
I don't expect to harvest the tomatoes any time soon, but they started above the ground and it's a reason for me to be happy!

And last, but not least, especially for my husband's request, the photos of the cats we met at the cottage last weekend (near the shop and on our porch - neighbour's cats). There was one more cat, the black one, but we didn't take a good shot of him.

Champagne for everyone! ^^

I just realized that today is my 1st blogging anniversary! *^v^*

What I learnt throughout this year of crafting:
- the second knitted sock can be quite a different size than the first one... which means I didn't pay the same amount of attention to keep the same tension of the yarn during the making of both socks!... (sic!) ^^
- but also many positive experiences, like toe-up socks, knitting cables without the cable needle, lace on very small needles, felting the knitted objects, weaving, a tiny little bit of crocheting, coming back to my roots that is embroidery! ^^,
- I learnt naalbinding and tried my hand in patchwork
- I made many different things like shawls, gloves, hats, capes, bags, wristwarmers, socks, some historical outfits and some everyday clothes,
- I published on my blog some free knitting patterns ^^
- I started to sell my things in two more on line galleries (in addition to the one I cooperated with for some time)
- I bought a loom (my big dream!)
- I initiated the crafty meetings with the girls in my historical group in an attempt to create both crafts learning zone and a kind of a women spiritual circle - I think it works fine up till now! *^v^*
- I started belly dancing classes, yikes! ^^
- but first of all, I met some incredible crafty people all around the world! *^v^*

What I would like to try:
- the following yarns are not available here in Poland and I'd love to try them someday: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Noro Kureyon, Lorna's Lace
- I still haven't knitted a whole sweater (which is my 2007 goal)
- I would like to learn spinning and dyeing with Kool-Aid (although it's not available in Poland)
- tatting is on my list of "to learn someday" things, maybe I'll manage to try it this coming blogging year ^^
- and probably many many more things that will come to my ever busy mind! ^^

Hugs and kisses to all my readers! *^v^*

Weekend crafts
These are the projects I've been working on last weekend:
I did a bit of cross-stitching on my Burgundian tapestry (not mine, it's already Helene's! ^^), I finished the first skein and started the second one of the Morning Surf scarf for my mother's birthday and I embroidered my Wordpicture - I covered the tree with buttonhole stitches and barred chain stitches (last week's TAST stitch - just in time, because tomorrow Sharon will announce the next stitch ^^).
I've been working with many shades of brown and ecru which is not typical for my colour schemes but I like the effect. When I finished working on the tree last night my first thought was I overdid it, but the when I wathced it for a while and got used to it more, I decided that I like it. I think it's more or less all I wanted for the tree, now I'm going to concentrate on the background, which, as colourful as it is, still needs some embelishments (that's my view! ^^).
As a bonus some close shots of the barred chain stitch:

New

New Knitty issue is out and I'm... so dissappointed!...
I like only one project, namely the Clessidra socks, all the rest is either not for me (I don't have a child, although looking at the patterns I wish I had, they're cute!) or not interesting. Well...

On the other hand, my new embroidery project is very interesting (for me *^v^*) and it goes well. This is the second Wordpicture called 'the tree' - 'drzewo'. I managed to piece the background together and add a tree shape and the word onto it. Now the fun part begins - I'm going to sit down and look at it for a while, and then the first stitch will come to my mind, so I'll take a needle, choose the proper colour of the thread and I will start the new adventure... *^v^*

And this week I'm going to sow the seeds of these beauties! *^v^* I hope they will grow nice and strong, and in the middle of May I will plant them into the soil on my parents' allotment. Keep your fingers crossed because the tray with the seeds will be placed on my bedroom windowsill, the favourite spot for my kitty to lay on and she especially likes laying on the soil, so I often find her in my plant pots (plants squished and moved to the side)!...

Look what I found!...

Me, the Queen of Procrastination!...

Look what I found yesterday at the very bottom of my embroidery box! This is the cross stitch tapestry I started about 5-6 years ago, the pattern comes from the old issue of "Anna" embroidery magazine. And as I look at it now it only needs two light green leaves to finish and the black background in the upper left corner and left side. I think I'm going to finish it soon, it's not that much work to do. *^v^*

I wonder what I should do with it, it's rather big (37 cm x 62 cm) and I don't have that many empty walls in our small apartment...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Several years ago we decided to stop watching tv.

We consciously rejected from our lives the presence of the news full of accidents, wars and corrupted politicians, old boring films, pathetically stupid sitcoms, advertisements of washing powder and new-even-better razor blades (Robert doesn't even shave!...). The only channel we watch in the evenings is the BBC PRIME (and occassionally VIA SAT HISTORY), where we have our favourite programmes, but we resigned from the constant presence of a tv in our lives. It doesn't have to be on all the time, like it used to be - I was coming home from work and the first thing I did after taking my shoes off was to switch the tv on. It used to be the background of everything we did - of our dinner, our conversations, our relaxation. And then we just decided not to have it on, especially with all those stupid, horryfying or boring news and shows, that were crawling into our minds.

People often say to us "Have you heard...?" refering to some news on tv, and we say "No, we don't watch tv.", and they are so surprised, as if it was something unnatural NOT to watch tv, not to absorb everything they tell us from that glass box, good and bad equally. And I don't want it, I refuse to be surrounded by more and more political scandals, wars all over the world, deaths, even celebrity news. I don't give a damn about what is going on in Britney's life right now (I know something because she's all over the newspapers I see in the shop and on the websites where I check the weather forecast, but I so don't want to indulge myself into the gorey details!...), I'm just not interested. It seems that the only good news for the journalists is bad news - only bad news sell well, only bad news bring people to the tv screens and to gossip magazines. Who's bum is bigger, who's having a love affair with whose husband, which politician took money in exchange for some favour, how many people died in the earthquake... I don't want to litter my mind with all these thoughts.

Robert's Grandmother says that it's weird that we don't watch tv because we don't know what is going on right now, and she is very eager to fill us with the latest political scandals, because she knows it all and she watches every news programme on all Polish channels. And she gives us different names, he said that and he said that, and gives us the details we really don't want to hear.

I live a happy life without knowing all those things - I am generally aware of the things happening in my country and around the world but please spare me the everyday details, because they do not concern me and are usually very disturbing, and I don't want to be disturbed. (Would it be polite to say something like that to my family members? Would they feel offended? Do I care if they were? After all it should be my choice of whether I want to know all those things or not. Well...)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi, Lana, thank you for your comment, nice to meet you! Could you please send me your blog address so I could see your crazy outfits? ^^
And my appeal to all other lurkers - please, say 'hi'! Do not hide in the dark, it's nice to know that I'm not talking to myself on this blog! (big kiss to my frequent commentators!) *^v^*

Ukrainian wise women and TAST

First, some replies to your comments:
Rho, thank you for your book suggestion, I've just got a copy of "The Secret" and will be listening to it in the near future. BTW, audiobooks are great! I can put them on and knit or embroider, or do whatever I want/need to do while listening to something interesting, yikes! ^^
Lobstah, I was also afraid that without a specific pattern I will ruin the overall picture with senseless stitches here and there but to my surprise, when I sit at the table and look at my panels I somehow know what to do next, what stitches to use, what colours, and it all composes a fairly consistent picture (at least I think so! *^v^*).
Corina, thank you for your sweet comment about my embroidery, I've been to your blog and I found many beautiful projects there, it's a shame I cannot speak Romanian...
Kendra, it's not that complicated as it sounds, I hope next time warping and weaving will be easier, maybe I just went straight into the deep water with the linnen warp, I should have started with wool instead. But I'm not discouraged at all and next weaving session is coming (I hurt my finger and could try again on Monday morning).

On Monday evening we went to watch a special movie - the document presenting old Ukrainian customs connected with several holidays: laments over the grave and feasting with the dead, Kust - the festival of Life, the holy tree, Rusalki - the festival of the dead wandering spirits, and in all of these customs the main part played beautiful songs, with traditional lyrics and melodies, sung a capella by the old women. Sad thing is that the only ones interested in preserving those customs are old women, because all the young ones leave their villages as quickly as possible and move to towns, so they change their lives completely and forget about their traditions.

But this movie was also great because I could see the traditional Ukrainian embroidered outfits - blouses, skirts and aprons, snowwhite with colourful flowers, all cross-stitched.

And because there are no such things as coincidences, this week stitch in the TAST is the very cross stitch itself! *^v^*

I've been having a love affair with this stitch for a long time now and I've done many projects in this technique, like pictures (my favourite is the Four Seasons cycle) or cushion covers with flowers on them. I also tried the traditional Ukrainian motives, like these bands on the photo, I haven't decided what to do with them yet.

I thought this stitch had no secrets for me, but I've never tried it in any free-hand embroidery, and when I looked up cross stitch family in Susan's stitch dictionary I found something interesting: namely the Rice stitch. I've achieved the similar result with Feather stitch or Cretan stitch, but it also looks interesting in this stitch and I'll give it a go soon.

My three panels are getting very crowded with motives and stitches, but I feel that this should be the case. I believe I need another week or so to finish them, and then I'll proceed to the next embroidery project (I have two in mind already, but I really want to make them one by one! ^^) .


(More photos on my Flickr).

And here are two books that I've been given be my Grandmother, showing everything she knew about embroidery (just look at them, they were used millions of times and the first one is in pieces, although not a single page is missing! ^^): the first one is about many types of embroidery, with individual stitches and some small patterns; the second one teaches a beautiful type of embroidery from the region of Poland called Kaszuby (close to the Baltic sea) - characteristics are: it's done on the grey linnen with only a few colours - black, two shades of red, blue, green and yellow, and white, and the motives are the flowers.

Creative thoughts

Yesterday, while continuing my embroidery project, I listened to the audiobook by Wayne Dyer "Creating Your Life With Your Thoughts" and something gave me a food for thought.

(apart from the fact that Mr. Dyer shouts at his listeners... I mean, not in an aggressive way, but his tone of voice is somehow disturbing, not a silky smooth voice like Sonia Choquette's voice I got to know from her audiobooks, btw, Sonia has also been a personal psychic advisor to Dr. Wayne Dyer ^^)

The general idea of Mr. Dyer's book is that our thoughts create the reality around us, and when we focus on good things - good things happen to us, and when we concentrate on bad things - we invite them into our lives. What we think about - expands. All the certainties and doubts equally.

Which I translated onto my life and my thoughts and all that has been happening to me up till now. How many times have I thought "Yes, I want to do it!", but then, in the next sentence I thought "Yeah, but... I'm maybe too old, it's inconvenient, I'm not skillful enough, it'll never be I wanted it to turn out, ect, ect...".

My biggest obstacle was the artificial idea put in my head throughout my childhood that it's not good to be openly happy and thankful for all the good things that were happening in my life, because it may cause the immediate turn of luck. If I'm too cheerful about my good relationship, my boyfriend will leave me. If I'm openly happy about the lottery winnings I'll loose the money in the near future. Don't tempt the Universe with your happiness because the Universe just waits for such silly people and changes their luck for worse.

From this idea comes the following behaviour: I say to my friend "Good luck at your exam!", and she immediately says "I'm not going to say thank you, because I don't want to jinx it!..." and runs away with a fear of being touched by the good wish which can bring ill-luck on her. Many people behave like that, and I used to do it a long time ago but then I started to fight this prejudice.

Why would the Universe (or God, or the High Spirit, however you want to call it) find the pleasure in making our lives miserable?...

I tend to favour the other concept, namely the one which says that the Universe answers our thoughts and intentions, and if we trully want to be happy, healthy and wealthy, it will come to us one day. But we have to clean our subconsciousness, getting rid of all the thoughts about the possibility of being jinxed, of not being good enough, not being able to achieve something, of being prejudiced, ect.
I'm not saying this is an easy process, it's like teaching an old dog new tricks and all, but it's definitely worth a try!

Embroidery

My TAST journey continues and I find more and more pleasure in making my pictures. ^^ They were just three blank pages last week (only with the black words on them), but as I look at them, each moment I have new ideas and add some elements here and there. I match the stitches, the colours and the whole pictures comes together. This weekend I'll be probably finishing the first panel and will be developing the second panel, of which I have a more or less clear picture in my head. The third one is still a mystery, although I started some elements on it.

I am trully amazed how easy it is for me to compose those pictures - up till now I've only embroidered drawn patterns or cross-stitch patterns, and now I let my imagination do the job! *^v^* I'll stick to pure embroidery in this first project but next time I'll try to be a bit more adventurous and add some patchwork, yikes!

As far as my sampler book, I thought about it and decided that I won't need a book binding skills for now, because I'll be doing the individual pages with stitches on them and I'll keep them in the plastic envelopes in an office binder. I want to have them in an alphabetical order so I may bind them into a book form later, when I have most of the pages with stitches ready.


Weaving

Today I spent my day painting my Ashford loom with a wood stain, and then I got carried away and sanded and painted the wooden table form IKEA and two wooden stools... *^v^*

Now I'm waiting for my loom-in-many-parts to get dry and we'll be assembling it tonight, so first weaving trials tomorrow!

Happy weekend, everyone!