If You Give A Mouse A Cookie . .

I can’t tell you how many times I have something, often multiple “somethings” going on and the book, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie comes to mind. I can have dinner all planned out and just before I start cooking, someone shares a recipe and I think . . that would go great with dinner, and while in the freezer getting out whatever I needed to make that recipe, I see something else that makes me think . . that would be great instead of something else I had planned to fix . . and then I go to the cabinet where my baking dishes are stored and decide . . all this needs to come out so I can re-arrange the stuff in this cabinet. Then I think of a dish I saw on Amazon that I need and grab my tablet to order the dish from Amazon, then I check mail and . . we’re lucky if we even get dinner at that point.

Yesterday’s “cookie episode”: A couple of weeks ago, Victoria Clayton from Hand-Dyed Fibers showed this floss she had recently dyed. No affiliation but I LOVE her silks. The truth is . . I love all the silks I’ve tried but I love hers the best. Some silks will snag on my hands, especially this time of year when I too often decide to pull one weed in the garden without gloves on and first thing I know, I’m scratching around in the dirt looking for a sweet potato and then my hands are in dishwater so much with all the canning . . hard on the old hands. Unless there’s a larger rough spot (like a cut that’s healing), these silks don’t snag nearly as much as some of the others. Vicki’s silks are perfect for 40 and 46 count where something like NPI or Soie d’Alger work better for 32 count. Vicki’s work great for most 36 count linen but every now and then, I get one that’s a little open (larger holes) and I will use a different floss. Vicki has the best customer service. Her colors are amazing. She has a DMC conversion on her website. She has “packets” where you can find the packets of floss for many, many charts.

Of course, I had to order the floss. It arrived yesterday and almost as soon as I opened the package, someone posted a photo on Facebook of a project they had started using it. I wanted to to start stitching with it but I don’t need another big project. I was thinking . . a small, one color project would be perfect.

I went to my Dropbox, and was thinking I might have a Modern Folk Embroidery chart that would work. When I went back to see what chart the lady was stitching (the one I had seen on Facebook), it was a Modern Folk Embroidery chart but it was larger than I wanted to start. I really need something I can finish within a week or so . . but you know that won’t happen.

While in Dropbox, I clicked on something and ended up in the “Gift of Stitching” file. At some point, I purchased the entire set of Gift of Stitching magazines, and I love going through those old issues. I have 72 issues from 2006 – 2012.

It appears that Issue #1 was February, 2006 and the final issue (#72) was May/June 2012 so I have them all. Anyway, I came across this chart in Issue #4 (May, 2006):

The first letter I stitched this morning was the “B” and apparently I wasn’t quite awake yet. The top of the “B” is one stitch short but that’s where I started and I’m not ripping out that entire letter for one stitch.

This should be a fairly quick stitch. Can I finish it in 5 days? Doubtful but I can try.