WOYWW 802/22 - Dismal, damp, and dreary...

Greetings, fellow deskers!

Short and sweet (and late) from me this week.  Circumstances as ever conspiring against me to get me here on time.  One day I may even be early.

So, no desk from me because nothing happened to it.  I did however start the inexorable task of going through the boxes that came from Mum's and we've managed a whole two.  Well, one and a bit to be precise.  The trouble is they're full of small things and treasures that were either too good to let go, or two useful.  Rulers and stencils, a box full of Windsor & Newton inks, this little witchy poo diorama...

One treasure was a box full of embroidery skeins that had been wound onto home-made bobbins (probably made by Dad) and which will turn out to be their very own nightmare.  You see, (and as some of you know) there's more than one brand of floss.  And did Mother write on the bobbin which brand it was?  No - she only numbered them.  And each brand bar a couple have different numbering systems. Jeez..... I will need to go through, unwind each floss and rewind onto an acid free bobbin, then work out what number it's meant to be and which brand. What a task, eh?  Some would say I'm crazy, others that I'm frugal.  LOL

Mum was what we call a promiscuous stitcher - she used lots of brands in one piece.

Not sure what we have going on here… yikes

There's also been some amazing finds - vintage British silks which I think are from the late 40's/early 50's, and some imitation silks which were lurking in Mum's stash.

Such beautiful colours!

It's a shame you can't zoom into the photos - you used to be able to but now you can't and I will need to work out how to fix that.  So, for the time being, here's a close up of the moons on the Cryptids piece.

I rolled the scroll frame down, and last week was mostly about frogging (unpicking) the border that was in the wrong place.  A whole 919 stitches had to come out but I feel much better for it.  Some folks think I'm crazy.... oh, I said that already.... 

Before

After

I've put it to one side to do my other WIPGO for this month, Nevermore, and I've finally picked up Siren's Lament after 9 months' break.  And after two days have realised exactly why I took a break - I was struggling with the basic stitching.  It gets hard work when there's lots of "confetti" but we have some progress. You can just about see the masts of a ghostly ship to the right of the mermaid's head.

Mary Anne asked last week if I have all my stitched pieces up on the wall.  I have one my Mum did, and then eight, I think, I stitched (including two of my own designs, tralala) myself and two that David did. There's a further 7 (2 mine, 5 his) waiting to be framed, and one which my best friend stitched for me currently at the framers.  We have plenty of wall space though.  Once the 7 waiting to be finished are done I'll share those ones here.  I think the others may have already been shown at some point. I don't sell them, but I have gifted some in the past, and so has David.

What was that about short and sweet?

Happy Hopping!

Morti x

PS - I was offered the job, which I've accepted, and Jeanette I think has an interview for hers.... yay!