Relaxxxeeeddddd

Is me :)

Had craft for two hours this morning. I managed to practice two new stitches - satin stitch and stem stitch. Satin stitch was fine, got taught the neat trick of if you separate all the strands of thread before putting the right number together (usually two), then they lie flat. I had to restart it after the second stitch because I hadn't put it close enough up to the outer border.

Stem stitch took two demonstrations of how to do the stitch. The first time I think it was more like back stitch. It didn't feel right, so I asked my embroidery expert for help and she unpicked it, showed me again and I did a few under supervision then was able to sew on my own.

I'm really enjoying learning embroidery stitches. I've always wanted to learn, especially in historicals when the protagonist usually has embroidery of some kind on the go. It looks gorgeous, and my grandmother (gone now) was really good at it, but I was too little to learn at the time.

I realise that I need pictures, but they will come another day. I'm nowhere near my camera, and I don't plan on moving for at least an hour.

Afterwards it was cleaning my birds out (they never like it), quick lunch then running off just under 2 hours of pampering at my local spa place which is 3 minutes from my house. Was half asleep, which was nice. Surprisingly have a bit of energy so going to do a bit of editing this afternoon while I can. Seize the moment! You never now what'll happen next.

Oh, I just wanted to put here something I realised when I read ahead on the ediitng course I'm using. I love books which put the protagonist through lots of mud, dirty water, mud, more mud (I'm not talking literally, but the protag gets pelted with tough things). Somehow I haven't quite managed that in practice. Editing will change that though. I'm reading the common mistakes made and instantly thinking 'I know where I did this!' It's quite funny when you think about it, because you always write something you know people won't believe, but you hope they do anyway (by people I'm meaning alpha/beta readers).

After 6pm though, it's sewing and dvd time! Which inevitably means Winx :)
Have a great day!