An almost finish and a new start

Almost done with the 'Oriental Dress' cross stitch, just the ribbon to attach. I would have done it yesterday with the dimanté thingies, but it needs ironing first. I also got some fat quarters of polycotton fabrics in matching lilacs and green to make up a little cushion/pillow, but I'm none too confident about that. Sewing is not something I've done a lot of, and I remember all that fuss with 'Child of Spring'....

Fished out a few kits to get on with from my kit box, one cross stitch - Lizzie*Kate's 'Cherish All Living Things', one ribbon work piece - a floral gate design, and one freestyle kit by Anchor done all in metallics, 'Goldleaf Dragonlfy'. I've made a start on this last one and here's both the cover photo of what it will be like when done, and the work I've done so far. As you can see, I've done the dragonfly. I've had to change some of it as it just wasn't practical to follow the instructions all the way. For instance, the silverwork you can see on the wings I changed from fly stitch in 1 strnad of blending filament to stem stitch in Coats Ophir. The reason for this is that they printed those thick lines you can see on the waterlily on the wings and there's no way one flimsy strand of blending filament was going to cover that in!


Been reading a fair bit again and covered some of Sheridan's plays (St Patrick's Day, The Duenna, A Trip to Scarborough and The School for Scandal) and two of Oscar Wilde's. I'd read 'Lady Windermere's Fan' before, but not 'Salome', though I can't claim that my life is richer for the latter - I didn't like it at all! Novel-wise I'm about a quarter of the way through Margaret Oliphant's 'Hester'.