Sketchbook update

This time around I have a page and a half to show you. I finally finished the back side of the very first page I stitched:

brown quilt

Since I have a lot of crafts with near-term deadlines, I didn’t do any hand embroidery this round. There will be plenty more of that, but I wanted to get something completed without spending several days on it. Hence, more machine embroidery. This time I colored the page before doing the stitching, and made the page pastel and the stitching black, like scratch-off coloring pages that are black over colors. I also switched from regular zigzag to a special diamond-shaped zigzag.

black diamonds

That was actually the underside while I was stitching. You can tell the kind of thread I had in the needle: copper metallic. Metallic thread is hateful stuff, but I am continually drawn to it despite that. Here’s the upper side:

copper and leaves

I worked it out and if the cover is included, I have to do a page a week from now on to finish the book on time. I’m not going to do exactly that; I’ll leave more for Thanksgiving and winter breaks. However, it was a boot to the rear to see those numbers! Starting in late November you can expect sketchbook updates to come slightly more than monthly.

I love Halloween

Really I do. I love the autumn, I love costumes, I love pumpkins and cats and goblins and witches. I love committing myself to serious costumery:

bearded lady costume
The cash box says “Step Right Up!”

I had to take the beard off to eat, though. Otherwise I’d have ingested a lot of plastic.

I love making excessively seasonal food:

pie with leaf and acorn crust cut-outs

Okay, that was for Thanksgiving, I’ll admit. But these weren’t:

witch and pumpkin apple slices

jack o'lantern radishes

What do you do for autumn and/or Halloween?