Thread:Superkenzie/@comment-33437691-20200103172834/@comment-33437691-20200111170351

We are very much alike, indeed, though I think you are the much neater stitcher  😁 . I don't think I'm messy, but skill grows with practice, and the only real embroidery I've done has been on the quilts (the knots I mentioned, and a little stem stitch) and that looks "fine" on the top. My untidiness in cross-stitch comes from ending the thread; I never trust that it won't unravel if I don't run it several times under the back stitches, and as you saw from the designs, they are very intricate, which means few large blocks of colour in which to hide the ends. My grandmother had doilies gallore as well, but hers were tatted, believe it or not. I tried to learn tatting; it was a long time ago, and I think I enjoyed it, but I'm not really a doilly person. Now, there was a perfectionist! She totally destroyed any desire my mother might have developed to enjoy sewing; maybe if she could have compared neat (straightline) sewing to piano scales my mother might have caught on to the necessity... But then I think my mother flubbed a bit on piano work because decades later when I started to learn, I was a better sight reader than she was and I wasn't very good at it by that point (not that I'm great at it now; it works, that's what counts) She had a good ear, as they say. I don't bother with scales either though; I have far too little time to develop proficiency and I'm not planning on composing, so I get all my practice by playing.

You are lucky to have had people in your family who share your crafts. I chuckled when you mentioned telling your son not to give away your projects; I had a similar talk with my son! He is mainly interested in my paintings, though -- he went cross-eyed looking at the graphs I use in cross-stitch, but he really likes the samurai, come to think of it.

Talking of mistakes: I did a large (36" x 36") painting of a Roman mosaic floor from ~10 AD. My mother had visited England and brought home a jigsaw puzzle of the very worn and dilapidated floor in Chichester, and when I found it still boxed, I did the puzzle. Then I graphed it out for cross-stitch or petit-point (which was a project in itself!) and what I found is that the Roman builders had made a huge mistake: the middle border is comprised of an arrow like design; it ran consistently pointing from left to right on 3 sides, but the 4th side was running right to left. I don't think it was intentional, either because those Roman designs are fastidious in the extreme. And a whole row of a lord's hall-sized mosaic is a lot more noticeable than the intentional stitch you read about (my grandmother and mother said the same things)--on the other hand, scale can go both ways. A hall is huge, and unless someone walked the whole floor it could be easily overlooked. There would have been dozens of craftsmen working on the floor, piecing each of those tiny marble chunks. And likely the foreman of the north side (or whatever side it was) got flogged and then beheaded--but only after he flogged and beheaded the slaves who were likely doing the work! Now there is a disincentive to making mistakes. I corrected it on my painting because I didn't want to have to explain all that to any viewers without having a photo of the original to prove that I wasn't just making excuses for inattention! But mistakes are rife (in life as well as art) and I've noticed that I left off the 'ears' on one of the corner urns. I don't know if that was intended, but it's an easy fix if I ever decide to paint the chequer-like squares around the canvas frame of the painting (it's about 1 1/2" deep).

Coffee's finished! I'll stop now. It's wonderful to have you as a friend. Don't fret about things to say; when you have time, you'll write, as I will. Life happens; Darkwood goes on! All the best.