Happy Monday!
It’s a very busy world out there. Over this past weekend, I decided to slow down a bit by sitting down and reading a few books. It was absolutely wonderful. I sat outside on my patio in the delicious summer air, and I also curled up in my favorite reading nook with this playing in the background for some always-important ambience. Being a mysterious person, I won’t tell you outright what I was reading, but I will give you a hint; I spent some time in the lovely village of St. Mary Mead. IYKYK!
Can you believe that we passed the summer solstice already? It’s hard to think of midsummer without thinking about Shakespeare.
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
WIP Update
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No; it’s more progress on Paris Market!
Really enjoying stitching this one. The flowers are really starting to jump off of the fabric, and as you can see in the middle, yellow has started to come into play. You might not be able to see it, but I also got some stitches done on the door up there in the middle. I ran into a bit of a problem with the floss cards. Paris Market is a kit, so all the floss came sorted out and attached to these strips of cardstock. That’s a very nice feature, and I’m glad they did that, because it can be a bit of a pain to sort out the lengths of floss while muttering to yourself, “Hmmm… is that medium forest green, or dark forest green?” So no complaints from me there. However, I was having a tiny problem with all the floss getting tangled up. My solution was to hang the floss cards on the bulletin board of my sewing room, and pray that my cats don’t notice them. Stay tuned in case there’s a cat disaster notice.
Hear ye, hear ye, next is Medieval Menagerie:
The third dragon is nearly done! While it does currently appear to have a pug tail, I can assure you that the finished tail will make it look sufficiently ferocious. On a side not, I am considering naming it Francis (Francis Drake… lol) but that’s not certain yet. It’s body was much more difficult to stitch than you would initially think, but thankfully I made it through with only a few visits from the frog.
Odds & Ends
Why Were Medieval Knights Always Fighting Snails? I have a friend who spent a whole hour of their life pondering the snail art in medieval manuscripts.
How was your midsummer night? And since we were speaking of snails… “Perdonamose!” St. John’s Birthday Feast and Midsummer Snails
This music seems appropriate for Midsummer. Mendelssohn makes everything better.
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