Woe is me

Yesterday was not good. Stitching-wise. Monday night I spent quite a few hours working on my "Florentine Fancywork" bargello correspondence course from ANG, finishing up the border and getting the first inside area well toward completion. I was so pleased with myself. I should have known better.

Last night at the stitching group, I finished up the ribbon section and started on the next area, which would take me across the rest of the width of the piece. I merrily stitched along, chatting and having a grand time. Until I reached the other side and discovered that my stitching didn't match the chart. I had too many of the repeated motif, and the fractional one at the end was the wrong fraction. Gah! After much counting and comparing and counting and comparing, I finally looked at the top border and compared it to the chart. Gah! I had done it completely, but consistently, wrong all the way across. Instead of having one thread between each motif, I had two. Gah! Gah!

I spent the rest of the evening ripping out all but the left side and the first element of the top and bottom parts of the border. I'm not sure whether this will make the third or fourth time for stitching that frickin' border! I do like the ribbon section and think it turned out well. Here's a picture of what's left, including the shadow of the ripped-out border. Gah! And I was optimistic that I could finish it by the deadline, which is in July, not June. I don't think I have a prayer at this point.

kthxbai.

::shuffles off, grumbling and muttering::

Now We're Cooking!

I know, I know. You're looking at the title and shaking your head. Cooking and stitching. Both lovely, sensual, and exciting things to do, but they so don't play well together. Except, that is, when one is watching/listening to a cooking show on TV while stitching. Best of both worlds! And cable is now offering us a second cooking channel: the, well, Cooking Channel! Yeah, I know, what a creative name. What do you expect from the folks who brought us the Food Network? And yes, I do believe they are related.

I've been enjoying watching some old cooking shows, like "Julia Child and Company" and "The Galloping Gourmet," as well as some newer ones (for me at least), like "Food Jammers" and "French Food at Home." I caught these last two a couple of nights ago (I think, the days run together when you work at home and there's a holiday thrown in). The "Food Jammers" guys decided to make their own fruit soda, which was hysterical. The first batch, which they decided to carbonate using a yeast process in bottles in the refrigerator, exploded in the refrigerator. Hahahahaha. It wasn't as bad as it sounds and no one was injured, but very funny. They did manage to get the procedure refined and ended up with some interesting sounding sodas, as well as an interesting method of dispensing them.

I'm really going to enjoy this channel for a while. At least until I've seen everything at least twice.

kthxbai.