Catherine, Laura and Jen joined us for last weekend’s embroidery session. All of them have been here before and so are considered “veterans.” They certainly showed their experience; they all accomplished a great deal.

Catherine was working on the unwieldy back piece, and stitched three complete roses along with a few odds & ends here and there. Laura mostly worked on the collar & cuffs frame, finishing the cuffs to the point that they are ready for goldwork. She also stitched the detached butterfly wing piece, and then sewed it to the collar, which made the collar done-done-done.

Jen was working on an equally unwieldy front, and did some of everything, including fancy worms. Fancy worms are composed of two parallel rows of ceylon stitch, in two different colors, with the head stitched separately in a third color but also in ceylon stitch. These worms also get black back stitched antennae (thus making them not technically worms, I know) but are not wrapped like the plain worms.

Here are all of them with their frames. They were friends from before this project, and traveled here together sort of like a girls’ weekend away. They have such fun together, it makes the atmosphere of the weekend sort of like a party. A few different times we’ve had friends meet here both to enjoy each other’s company and to work together on the project. It puts me in mind of all the different sorts of women’s gatherings to work and talk, like quilting bees or houseraisings (OK, there the men are working I guess but if you don’t think it’s a lot of work to feed timberframers, I’d like to introduce you to a couple of cooks I know…..)

I think my home computer is looking for a little (hopefully little) monetary expression of our affection. It’s refusing to open or edit pictures, or just about anything else that requires any thought. Maybe its jealous of all the time I’ve been spending with the laptop at work.

At any rate, instead of pretty pictures tonight we have just text. The end of the May session went fine, as I found out yesterday, except for my brain cramp regarding notifying Marcia about allergies. Sunday’s lunch covered just about every allergy possible but thankfully everyone realized it in time and there were no trips to the ER. Luckily there were some super-yummy leftovers that stepped in to cover my mistake.

Saturday night Laura and I had a hugely profitable discussion about construction techniques for the eventual sewing-together part of the jacket project, ably assisted by Robbin and Jen who quickly hunted up every photo we wanted to look at.

Kris A came in on Monday after five days in a Japanese embroidery class, and continued to work on the jacket Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday I asked her if she wasn’t tired of embroidering. “This is what I do,” she replied “well, what I’d do all the time if I could, anyway.” Yep, the whole eating and sleeping thing wicked gets in the way of my fiber time too. Pictures tomorrow.