Last weekend, I had nearly 200 photos from last year printed. That's been the spur for completing all of my monthly photo pages for Document 2010, and also continuing to Journal my Christmas. I'm now 7 pages and a cover away from the latter being complete, which is probably the furthest I've ever got, and certainly the furthest after Christmas I've continued to keep at it. It's much more a record of what I did than my previous 2 Christmas Journals inspired by Shimelle's great class, and it's my favourite yet.
Perhaps I have finishing things in mind because this week, I finished reading Ulysses! All 933 pages of it. This has taken me since August, plus a week to read the notes. This is one of those classic books an English student should read, and now, a few years late, I finally have. I must admit it didn't all make sense, but oh, when it did, it was worth every page that didn't.
I have also picked up something else, which has not seen the light of day for an awfully long time. Before I started making cards, before I started scrapbooking, before I acquired a sewing machine, I used to cross stitch. And several years ago, while still a student (yikes, more years ago than is entirely comfortable), my mum bought me the kit to make this:
That is a cross stitch version of Ashness Bridge, which is a Very Popular Lake District View, as seen on chocolate boxes and biscuit tins galore.
Now the thing about cross stitch is that it takes me a very very long time to finish what I start. We're talking months, years. Case in point: the last project I finished before I was bought this was an actual sampler, to the same pattern as one my mum had done years ago, but in different colours. I must have started that when I was about 12, and I finally finished that and had it framed as a Christmas present for her the Christmas after I left university, making it a good 10 years in the making. Basically, I will pick it up every once in a while, and then put it away again for ages, before I remember it and contritely get it out again.
And so it has been with this. I can remember beginning it when I was in lodgings in Birmingham, and come March, it will be 6 years since I left that city for this one. And how far have I got now, a fortnight after beginning again?
Embarrassing!
One of the difficulties here is the colour, or rather, the lack of it. I started in the middle, as you do, and there's an awful many shades of grey in that bridge. I remember the sheer relief of getting to a point where I could do some green!
The other difficulty is that it is extremely time consuming. My lack of expertise doesn't help, and nor do the extremely tight, tiny stitches required for this. The thing is though, it's very very absorbing. It's the sort of thing where the minutes pass by with remarkable haste, due to the concentration it takes to get the counting right, and the needle into the appropriate place. Or maybe that's just me!
At the beginning of this month, a bridge and the many shades of grey felt like a very apt metaphor. And so it was that it was dusted off and saw some activity.
And now? Well, now I've shared it with you, I would like to be able to show you a bit more at some stage. Maybe even finished and hung up on a wall. As for the metaphor, well, now I'm a lot closer to the oranges and blues than I was when I picked it up a couple of weeks ago. Much closer, in fact. :o)
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