Sweet Pea Sweater Embroidery Project

This is the project that had most of my focus today. I did crochet another bookmark though after this project ran into a snag which my sister will have to help fix and her agenda was full today. She drew the sweat pea vine on the tissue paper and pinned it to the sweater so that two of the leaves and one of the flowers are covering spots that she accidentally bleached while working out a stain on Mom's sweater nearly two years ago.

The concept of using the tissue paper for a pattern for me to follow seemed good but the normal handling of the project is tearing the tissue paper and causing it to shift position so that the crucial flower and leaves are no longer covering the offending spots.

I suggested to her today that I could probably put in the vines and leaves by eye so it is mainly the flowers I need a guide for and possibly it would work better to have the flowers drawn on small pieces of tissue no bigger than index cards that I could pin in place as I prepared to work that flower. If we go that route she will probably cut the out the flowers from the tissue sheet shown in the picture. Except for the crucial one on the bottom middle which is torn and which she had to use whiteout on and redraw after goofing it the first time. I told her that one was confusing me as there were too many extraneous marks and I can't see the 'trellis' line on the sweater through the white-out. And that is the one covering the biggest bleached spot so it has to be positioned perfectly. All of that coupled with my visual impairment just makes it too iffy.

I've committed to finishing this before I go home so I'm going to be dedicating a lot of attention to it over the next couple of weeks and thus blogging about it. Today I chose the colors from a selection of thread given to me by a friend of my cousin who was at a baby shower my sister and Mom attended Saturday. My sister overheard her talking about these bags of thread given to her that she had just sorted and untangled but didn't really need and mentioned my interest in needlework so the lady dropped them off today. They apparently had belonged to my Mom's best friend who died in November. The same woman who took my wedding photos and whose shoes fit me so well when her daughter brought them by in early January, I kept four pair plus a pair of slippers.

So that's the second time I've scored the remnants from the sewing 'bags' of someone whose passed. Most of the crochet thread I used the last couple weeks was from my husband's Grandma's sewing bag. And my sister-in-law who received one of the bookmarks I made yesterday, asked if I'd be interested in some more remnants which I suspect came from her Grandmother who went into a nursing home awhile back and who was known for always having a crochet or knitting project with her.

Then there is my Mom's sewing and craft stuff--bushels of it that I've been going through and blogged about a few times already. Which is where I found some of the ribbon and most of the beads I used on the bookmarks Saturday.

If I'm not careful, my sister-in-law will have to use their van instead of their Prius to drive me south when the time comes.

Speaking of which...

I have been hoping I would get to go home by the end of this month but I talked to my husband today and the only day he would be able to make the drive to the truck stop half way between Portland and Medford is the Monday of Memorial Day weekend which is only two weeks and though it might be doable getting the sweater embroidered and my stuff all gathered from the umpteen corners of this house and packed and all the last minute errands and visiting all while continuing my daily duties here and daily blogging and.... Umm. I'm sure I'd have to stop work on the family photo scanning project and probaly on sleep and tramp work and showers and reading for fun and... Umm. Maybe doable but not with grace. I'm stressing just imagining it.

So the next available day he has is the Sunday of June 21 because between Memorial Day and mid to late June is when his company ships cherries which are fragile and have a short shelf life so that is always a frantic few weeks--long hours and lots of aggravation. Of course, we don't have to wait for a day he is availbable but then whoever drives me down would have a ten to twelve hour round trip.

So June 21st is my tentative return date--one week short of six full months from the day I arrived.