It's been far too long between visits but I went to Paris and was far too tired to write and then three days after my return the family and I went up to Massachusetts to celebrate a friend's daughter's birthday. So, needless to say I've done no
crapting other than the
weeist bit of stitching humanely possible:
My work on Carriage House Samplings' Faith Hope Honor. Nice, huh? Definitely not
crapt, though in my
crapting defense I seem to have an uncanny ability to break threads. See if you can spot the two
crapters below:
Kind of hard to see, but there is one green and one yellow. So my tradition of
crapting excellence continues.
In Paris I pursued my
crapting interests by seeking out needlework shops. I bought this cute kit at Le
Bonheur des Dames:
I love bowls. I'm always drawn to bowls, that and plates with fish on them. The kit comes with Aida but I'm thinking of doing it on linen. There are a lot of cross-stitching fanatics who are huge snobs concerning Aida. I haven't succumbed to that level of Aida loathing - yet - but lets face it, linen is nicer. The big reason I most likely will not toss the Aida is because quite frankly I'm a cheapskate and I hate waste. I'll just keep telling myself that it's French Aida and what could be more sophisticated than that?
Le
Bonheur des Dames is a wonderful shop that sells mainly kits but also had lots of fabrics, buttons and other
embellishments. I also went to De
Fil Et Une Aiguilles, a small but well stocked store. They had some great finishing ideas, like a Little House
Needleworks small turned into a
needle book. De
Fil Et Une Aiguilles had many American charts (that I already own no less!) and it was fun watching a French woman making an enormous pile of Rosewood Manor, Prairie Schooner, Little House
Needleworks and other American charts. Also stopped at the cutest needlepoint shop, Annie Bouquet, some really wonderful canvases but I'm on a budget so I could only admire.
I went to
Giverny, which was a madhouse. So many people. I could only imagine Claude looking down at his beautiful house and garden and screaming at everyone to go away. But I got a
crapting idea of making a quilt (yeah like I know how to do that!) of some of the photos I took of his gardens:
These looked like feathers, maybe even hair. They were beautiful and it would be fun to turn them into a quilt. This little stream was beautiful and also got me thinking of a quilt:
I visited two cemeteries:
Montparnasse and
Pere Lachaise. I have to show the coolest grave I've even seen. It's for the Pigeon family and it's in
Montparnasse:
Imagine being buried under that!
But, at
Pere Lachaise, a jumble of graves in madcap disorder, I was intrigued by images of mourning women and children and if I were able to design a cross
stitch chart I'd like to make a kind of mournful tableau of these images:
How sad is that one! The one below is pretty melancholy as well:
I should have gotten closer on this one but this was at the end and I was getting tired.
Love the sadness of this one:
What do you think? Worthy for a
crapt?
Here is a nice detail:
Though it was quite difficult to stay motivated, I'm so happy I did and that it's completed. What a relief.
I could have been done weeks ago if I would have just sat down, kicked ass and plowed through, which is my usual behavior in regards to stitching projects. I'm always a sprinter when the finish line is in sight. But for some reason, I can not figure out (though, honestly, I haven't delved that deeply) I just can't seem to do it. I glance at it, sitting there on my hassock looking sad and unloved, and I turn away. I can't take the guilt. So I ignore.
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