Web Thready

I finished the Web Thready this morning - hurrah. Only took me almost a year. I still need to get it framed somehow, but I'm quite happy with how it turned out. I tried out the plastic spider and it just didn't look right. Instead I chose a big black bead and threw on some bugle bead legs. This little guy even has eight legs, as compared to the six I so often give my spiders.

Unfortunately the scanner lopped off some of the edges, but you definitely get a better picture this way. Can you see all those darn stitches? Now you know what a mindless idiot I am. No, dedicated needlewoman, that's it.

By the way, the size is roughly 4 1/2" x 4 3/4". At least how I'm seeing this image, it's looking almost exactly life size. The whole thing is very wobbly - the result of going in circles (I didn't lay down a grid first b/c I didn't want stitches going a different direction). I could wash and block this piece and it would get flatter, but I like it as is.

I needed a project I could just pick up and go, so decided to make a thready to match the "Halloween Faces" quilt. In this style of thready, I start with a regular patterned piece of fabric, and just add embroidery floss stitches over the top of it. The first step I did on this one tho was to add a perle cotton stem stitch outline. I've discovered that it's best to do a grid pattern and then start adding the stitches going diagonally, or whatever direction they want to go.

Horror of horrors, I decided I hated how "Noel" was quilting up. I'd used polyester batting - cuz it was the only white batting I had - and I hate how puffy it was making the quilt look. Will have to use that batting just for crusties. Anyway, I also realized that the dark green backing I'd chosen really was shadowing thru to the front and didn't care for that either. So I took out all the fans I'd quilted on two sides of the outer border, unpinned it, and threw the top into a pile where it will wait until I get some bleached Hobbs Polydown. Better to be happy with it.

The saga of my knee continues. After getting it drained and going on the strongest anti-inflammatory they had (which I could only take for five days or else my "blood would fall out") the doctor has decided something else is going on with me knee. Going to see the orthopedist on Saturday morning. I'm on new meds called "Cataflam" - isn't that the best name ever? Sounds like a game.

And in completely unrelated news, I've discovered how much I hate "CSI: NY" - way too dark (both on screen and emotionally). Doesn't have the humor that the original has and I hate all the characters. So it goes bye-bye. We've been lucky enough to get some "Law and Order Criminal Intent" here, which I enjoy until the last 10 minutes where Vincent D'onofrio gets to start grilling the witness. Boring.

For true class in mysteries, we're watching third season "Columbo" even tho I've seen most of these episides multiple times already. And hubby and I are rewatching "Alias" from the very beginning - no, it doesn't make much sense this time thru either, but I still enjoy it.