Sacrificial Patterns for Pélé (not the soccer guy, the volcano one)

Holy Hell! If I actually get Lo How a Rose done before it sends me into the nut house, I'll have a party and burn that pattern in some ceremonial volcano ritual.
It started out so promising, and has turned into the project from hell. It's making me feel very stabby. Maybe I should trade the embroidery scissors out for Boybat's safety scissors?
Last night as I was finishing up the vines in the corner, I noticed that the words "was" and "Night" weren't lining up right. More ripping and cursing and then the discovery that I'm out of the floss I need to redo the text (curse mumble mumble curse mumble curse).

Very little stitching otherwise. This past weekend was the second decent weekend that we've had with no rain or snow. Boybat, Joe, and I picked out flowers for the pots and planted sunflowers seeds. I rebuilt the little rock ledge since it was shifting (little boys climbing on it probably didn't help). Broke out the patio furniture and even put little solar lights in the flower beds. I'm feeling like quite the outdoor goddess this week. Oh, and painting. After painting the front door and the bathroom, along with the gardening, holding a tiny little needle was out of the question.

Nothing good can come from power tools and liquor

There's only one power tool in our house. A drill. Okay, a drill and a Dremel tool I got for craft stuff. So, two power tools in our house. Neither Joe or I are inclined to build things. It usually ends up with us not speaking to each other and a dresser with upside down drawers. We've accepted that we should never assemble things together unless counseling and liquor are involved (the same thing with furniture moving, nothing good comes from furniture moving). Even then, should liquor, bad carpentry skills and power tools be combined?

So imagine my trepidation when Boybat came home with his pinewood derby car.

I thought at least the damn thing would be vaguely car shaped–add some paint, some stickers and call it good. Noooo, It's a freakin' rectangular block of wood with 4 nails and some wheels. What the hell Boy Scouts? I'm not letting a 7 year old loose with a hand saw and a block of wood.

There's not much you can do to a block of wood with a drill to make it look like a car.

After Boybat and I got as far as we were going to get with the hand saw, Elmer's glue and a Dremel tool, I got to settle in for some stitching this weekend.

I put a pretty good dent in the as yet unnamed project that I've been working on. I decided to back stitch a few of the flowers just to see if I like the shapes. I'm still trying to decide if I prefer the medium pink or the dark pink back stitching on the large flowers.

Starting Over, and over, and over

I started a new project yesterday. Actually, I started a new project for a third time yesterday.

It's a pattern that I designed, hard to explain but it involves stylized flowers and bright colored borders behind the flowers. Flowers you say, incredulously? Yes, dammit, I am a delicate and fragile flower myself...Bwaaahaaahhaaaa, I tried to say that with a straight face, I just couldn't do it.

The fact that I designed it means it doomed to starts and stops and color changes as I go.  By the time I'm done with it, it may not look like anything like the pattern I started with. 

My first start–after getting about a fifth of it done–I decided I didn't like the fabric it was on, got disgusted and put it in the "basket of the ostracized projects". Those projects are not allowed to play with the good projects, they would be a bad influence, the stitching equivilent of smoking under the bleachers.

A thought just occurred to me as I was picturing the previous sentence, this must be why all my friends look at me furtively, they're waiting to see what bizarre tangent I'll take. I'm not really crazy.

The second start–almost 2 years after the first start–I didn't like the colors anymore, the design needed to have bright, summery colors, not the ones I started with. The ply was wrong too, should have gone with single ply thread.

So, this is my third start of the same project. Right colors, right fabric.

I think.