Television Brain

I've been working on "The Oak Tree Sampler." Now that the alphabet is sorted out, I moved on to the central "oak tree" motif. It got way too complicated - and a right royal PICNIC it was too. (In computer help desk parlance, that stands for Problem In Chair Not In Computer.) I was happily working away, but when I stepped back to look at the work, I realized something was wrong. Namely, I'd worked the trunk in the wrong color. All that rust is supposed to be green. Sometimes my seam ripper is my best friend.

I guess I miss fall so much I decided to make it an autumn oak!

So, back to work. But I moved indoors, which meant I was in front of the television. Now I don't watch television as much as I listen to it because I'm usually stitching or knitting when I'm in front of the idiot box. Unfortunately, I tried this while watching a British mystery, Death in Paradise, a piece set on a British protectorate in the Caribbean.. And between the British accents, the island accents, and the fact you're trying to keep track of the clues - the next day when I sat down to stitch, I realized the BBC and cross stitch motifs on linen are not a happy mix.

Heard about your brain on drugs? Well, this is your stitching under the influence of TV.

Then I had a huge debate about the color. It's green. It's okay. But it was bugging me. I even pulled out my thread collection and considered changing it. As I compared the green to the other colors in the piece I could see exactly what the designer was doing, which lead me to seriously question what I was doing. It finally dawned on me what my problem was. The leaves are oak-like. My art training is as a botanical illustrator, and DMC 3363 is not a very oak leaf-like color. I decided to get over myself and stick with the original color. Especially as I had consulted with my sister and she had wisely pointed out that you can only rip out your stitches so many times before your linen starts falling to pieces out of sheer frustration with you.

There is not a thing wrong with that green!

Things seem to be going much more smoothly now.

Sometimes I need close supervision.