I really tried to finish the fruit crate label in time for the framing sale. I took most of yesterday off and just stitched and stitched. I gave up about 10 PM last night with probably only 300-400 stitches left to do. I could possibly still finish it today and get it to Ginger’s but it will need to be washed, dried, and ironed so I’m just going to let it go. There will be another sale, and anyway, it’s such a small piece, it won’t be as expensive to frame as the other Scarlet Quince pieces I’ve done.
I felt very decadent stitching in the daytime — I usually only stitch at night. I watch (sort of — you know) movies while I stitch, and when I turned the TV on, there was “It Came From The Sea” with the beautiful Faith Domergue battling giant octopi and male prejudice about what women are capable of (it would have been more convincing if she hadn’t screamed like a banshee when she first saw the monster, but I guess ya gotta have the girl scream). I didn’t notice the first time I saw this movie but they economized by only building one octopus arm. Then I watched a lot of movies I had recorded at various times. There was “The Green Years” with a young Dean Stockwell, which was terrible and I don’t know why I recorded it. “Ecstasy”, which is the German film in which Hedy Lamar had a nude scene (she goes swimming, leaving her clothes draped over her horse’s saddle and doesn’t tie up the horse — bad plan). Though it had subtitles, there was almost no dialog so not a problem to watch while stitching. Unhappy ending, BTW. Also “Brief Encounter”, made in wartime England with Trevor Howard. He’s a doctor who meets a woman at a train station and they fall in love although they both have families. They spend about three afternoons together very innocently making themselves thoroughly miserable, then he takes himself off to Africa to avoid any more temptation. After all this I need a break from stitching, or at least from movies. As you can probably tell, Turner Classic Movies is my channel.
I have bought and finished a number of your pieces and have been very happy with them. I'm almost finished 'The Young Botanist', so it's time to order another one!
From Alanna
16 years, 3 months agoWow, I wonder how you can watch TV whilst you stitch! My mother and sister in law do it too, and I’ve tried but I just can’t manage it. I either end up just watching the TV or just blocking it out and concentrating on my stitching. But I’m terrible with TVs, we never had one when I was growing up (and I still don’t have a TV in the house), so when there is one there I find it extremely distracting. I’m completely incapable of carrying on a conversation with the TV on in the background, even when it’s something I’m 100% not interested in, like the cricket! I do like to watch the odd movie though, and we put DVDs on the computer for that. And most movies I watch are foreign films anyway, so you’ve got to keep up with the subtitles!
Some people wonder how I can watch TV and read but I do that too. It’s rare that something is gripping enough for me to just sit and watch it. If I don’t have any needlework or a book I’ll get up and start dusting or shelving books. Foreign films work OK for me while stitching — someone says something and then you need to look up to see what they said. (I leave the sound up in case any foreign language rubs off on me.) Silent movies are much trickier — there’s no audible cue that there is a title. We now have TV service that lets you rewind any program you’re watching — it spools everything to disk automatically, so if I get lost or wonder why someone suddenly is acting strange I can rewind and find out what I missed. It used to be I had to ask MRA “What just happened?” but now I can find out on my own.
From RIfestitch
16 years, 3 months agoI have to have the tv on while I’m stitching – I need it to look up at every so often, so my eyes can get a little exercise at a different range
But I get the most stitching done when I put on a movie or show I’ve seen 1000 times, so I can just kind of follow along in background; if I find I’m really concentrating on my stitching, and lose my place in whatever’s on, I can usually just listen for a minute and know right where we are. Kinda like comfort food for my brain 
I wish I could listen to audio books while I stitch, but I’ve tried – and in the car, too – but I find when someone is reading aloud while I am doing somehting else, I tend to just tune it out, and who knows how much time has gone by and suddenly, I ask myself what is going on, as I haven’t heard a word for “pages”. But then, I am also a very tactile person, and I like to turn the pages, so reading is more than just the words for me, I guess. Now, if Clive Owen or Chris Cornell would read all of my favorite books, I might be able to pay attention… though then I would probably have some serious counting issues…
My main problem with audio books is that they all … read … so … slowly. If someone doesn’t speak at a minimum speed I start thinking about something else.