Wednesday, September 16, 2009

s.a.b.l.e.

Are you familiar with the acronym S.A.B.L.E.?

It's one of my favourites... as it's so descriptive... and most of us can totally relate to it...

Stash
Acquisition
Beyond
Life
Expectancy

Does that sound familiar to you? Have you acquired more crafting materials than you could ever expect to use in your lifetime? Or perhaps you know someone who has?

(hello Daphne)

I was looking through my embroidery case the other day, when I came to the frightening realisation... that even if I spent an hour embroidering every day, for the rest of my life... I CAN'T IMAGINE I WILL EVER MANAGE TO FINISH ALL THE EMBROIDERY PROJECTS I HAVE STARTED!

I'm not being melodramatic about this. Anyone who has ever dabbled in cross-stitch embroidery knows that it is painstakingly slow work. Sure, the results are fabulous... it just takes forever to get there.

animal cross stitch

I worked on this piece over a period of ten years!

Admittedly, it was an on again/off again project... but still... I don't need to tell you that ten years is a damn long time...

Reading through your comments from my last post, I had to agree with Misha. My style is usually simple and speedy. I love items which come together quickly, so that I don't get the chance to become bored with them. It's very surprising, especially to me, that I have gone back to my embroidery. Perhaps Stances & Stitches is on the right track when she suggests that with all the stress going on, I needed to find a place of calm... and the simple, slow rhythm of embroidery provided me with the 'centring' that I was craving.

Or maybe I'm just fickle, and I got bored with my yarns...

hat box - open

Anyway, here's a shot of some of those projects. It's a bit hard to see much detail because of the reflection from he plastic bags. I keep them in a vintage hat box which my father bought me for my birthday a few years back. Definitely one of my favourite gifts ever...

hat box - close up

hat box - closed

As for my current embroidery? My aim is to finish by the end of the year. Then I will probably have it professionally framed. The other option is to make it into a cushion cover, but I worry about how grubby it might get at my place... Might just be best to put it safely behind glass.

3 comments:

heklica said...

The animals are perfect! I especially like the fact that they are not of that cutsie, nursery-room kind that you so often find in cross-stitch design (which doesn't necessarily mean I don't like it) and at the same time not going to that other extreme of hyper-realistic serious representation of animals that you occasionally see in magazines.

whatsonox said...

So good to see you back. Along with everyone else I missed you.

I do understand s.a.b.l.e. My mother and my husband's grandmother and my husband's aunt all had sables. They've got to the time in their lives when they want to declutter and have accepted that maybe they will never find a use for that interesting bit of cloth that they saw at a good price or the one ball of wool left over from some long ago project- so they've handed it on to me saying "I'm sure you can find a good use for this".

When we moved last year I had to get rid of some of it and the rest is stored in the loft at our old home. Our new home started off sable free - but now it is my daughter who is attracting the sable. She has more beads than a 10 year old could possibly need and another birthday coming up. I'm just hoping no one gives her anymore. Perhaps she could have a craft party and use up her beads that way?

On the upside my mother recently finished the embroidered cushion she started sewing when she was pregnant with my 50 year old sister - so sometimes even the forgotten things work out.

So good to see you back.

Big mamma frog said...

yep...definitely know S.A.B.L.E.
It's wool mostly, stashed away in the loft. Dh attempts to be understanding (if only to increase my tolerance of his numerous guitars). He calls my wool stash 'loft insulation' lol.