My Poorly Computer

My computer is very poorly; the hard disc has died. My partner obtained a new disc and installed it but it now seems that one may be defective. We are waiting for a replacement. In the meantime I have limited accesses to the web. More concerning is the potential loss of many of my photographs and various files that I have downloaded and saved. Some of my pictures are copied onto CD but not the more recent ones. J says that it may be possible to retrieve them but by no means certain. All of my fingers and toes are crossed that they can be recovered.

On the stitching front I am making slow but steady progress with a couple of projects. Work on Venerable Friends continues. Currently I am outlining the pages of the central book. For each outline, I first make the couching threads and then a 4->1 tight twist of sufficient length for the outline I am stitching. To make the threads and outline a page takes me a little more than one hour and must be done in one sitting as the tight twist begins to relax if it is not couched in place quickly. I can only manage an hour-long session a couple of times a week so progress is slow. Only a couple of main pages remain; once they are outlined, things should go a little quicker because the remaining outlines are shorter.

Between times, I am stitching a Christmas ornament for a swap. This is the first swap I have ever signed up for and I am slightly anxious about it. I have probably decided on a design that is too time consuming for the time available, but I am determined that I will not be late sending it. I am also concerned that the recipient will not like it, but I guess I can only do my best at stitching it and hope that she will.

When I first heard about SharonB’s Sumptuous Surfaces on-line course, I very much wanted to take part but at the time was over whelmed with other projects. That has been the case each time the course has rerun, until this year. As soon as I heard that it would rerun this November, I determined to do it and signed up. With the Christmas ornament still to do, my time is a little stretched but I have made time to read the excellent class materials and work some of the exercises. I am desperate to start stitching but will resist all temptation until the ornament is dispatched (well, I'll try).

So even if the computer were fully operational, I would have very little stitching to show even though I am doing quite a lot. The only new pictures I have, are some scans of my design exercises for Sumptuous Surfaces in my Flickr account.

Happy Stitching