some speak in purple silk using flowery, witty, ornate language as they voice their angst at the vicious, mean bullying taking place. wringing their hands in private emails, assuming that by saying nothing to the venomous gossip spewed to and around them by the bullies, they are not contributing to the attack.

okay. this particular place at my dinner party is called w.i.t.w. which stands for woman’s inhumanity to woman. not a pretty thing from any seat at the table. my daughter and i fell victims to two particularly nasty emotional thugs a month or so ago.

such women seem to feast on the weakened and the vulnerable. can anyone explain that to me, please?

so much viciousness, so much meanness. well, i really don’t want to recount – shoot, i don’t even want to remember. words are beginning to surface, but not enough yet. am still stitching my way through to situating the tenacious event since i know understanding and clarity is and will forever remain impossible.

yesterday acey commented on the BULLion stitches. (thanks, acey.)

you know, there is something metaphorically therapeutic about wrapping the thread around and around and around the needle, then pulling and sometimes even yanking it so all lie down orderly, perhaps even prettily next to each other. it’s in the tension, i think. wrap the thread too tightly around the needle, and experience stuck: can’t pull the needle through. get nowhere. don’t guide/manage, and threads quickly escape then poof – they’re gone – requiring one to start all over.

still haven’t stitched my way through to words, so more snapshots from today’s needle romps. interesting articulating feelings with thread, allowing the words to join when ready.

there are times in my life when words fail me. when the situation is too close, too raw for words to articulate, express. when such times arise, i silently stitch my way through to the words. this stitch-through piece – an addition to my dinner party – is >nearing completion, and i am still not ready to write about it because i am still unable to get my heart and head around it satisfactorily. so for now, we will just have show without the tell . . .

mother loves formal table settings, so for the back of her plate, i cut apart a damask napkin. at best i HOBBLE fabric pieces together, but these 4 quarters (corners of the napkin) came together quite nicely, me thinks. each plate measures 9″ in diameter (i use one of those unbreakable plates bearing my child’s artwork as a pattern), and i apparently even did the math correctly – another delightful it’s-about-time surprise. the edges of mother’s plate are finished with white satin ribbon. all that’s left is to damp stretch.

took a break from the not-so-pretty stitching to finish off the dinner plate for my mother, ada. named after her daddy’s favorite mule . . . or his mother, we’re not really sure which since he gave her the “named-after-my-mother” story as a birthday present late, late in his long, long life.

got the idea of a nest from a piece that talented one called acey did a while back. from the womb till this very day, my mother creates the most beautiful, tasteful, gracious, supportive, nurturing nests in every way a woman/mother can create a nest.

when she was a wee baby, mother reached out to grab the lacy collar of her grandmother who smiled at mother and cooed, “she’s going to love pretty things. oh yes she is.” the woman knew. she just flat-out knew.

i could tell you more – lots more – about mother. stories, memories, and tributes abound (and with my new server plan, i have the bandwidth to share them all). but i think for now i’ll just let you meet her over dinner.

french knots and straight stitches = sticks and stones . . .

though there was much taking up space on my to do list today, i stitched my way through the wait while daughter got her third iv this week. felt like a mini-vacation. (the stitching, of course, not the iv.) cretan stitch improving, me thinks. building sharp-edged chaos is the goal. interesting to stitch something that’s not nice, cute, orderly, or beautiful. interesting reactions from onlookers to something that’s not beautiful and orderly and cute and nice, too.

spent yesterdayy struggling with the cretan stitch, then this morning: bless goodness if i didn’t figure it out. just the way it always happens: i say aloud “okay, that’s it. forget this, i’m striking out to do a stitch we’ll call jeanne’s cretan.” then voila: i figure it out: you have to TURN the fabric. first this way, then that way. first up, then down. i promise that little (important) tidbit was NOT in the instructional sketch in either of my books, and yes, maybe if i had a lick of spatial concept sense, i would’ve been able to figure that out.

but alas.

you can still see the wonkies and wobbles, but basically i’m getting the hang of it.

then, feeling ever-so-confident, i went back and added a third prong to make tridents. perfect for this place setting.

tomorrow i break out the instruction book for the camera and see what i can do about taking snaps that don’t need to be shaved.

spatial concepts is not my strongest intelligence. i’ve known this for a long time, and while it is not on the long list of reasons i married mr. thrillenity, i must admit that it was like finding yet another diamond about him when he first translated a diagram of an embroidery stitch to me in terms i could grasp and run with. now i’m getting to that point in life when it seems prudent to learn to follow diagrams on my own, but alas: i’m thinking (with one of my stronger intelligences) that it’s just not in the cards. not in my deck anyway.

for the past few days i’ve been working on stitching my way through a dilemma. am wanting to do random some sharp-edged, pointy stitches – something with a trident look about it – and the cretan stitch seems just the ticket. but, shoot, i simply canNOT replicate the diagram, the sketched instructions. i mean, really. do any of these thread markings even vaguely RESEMBLE any cretan stitch you’ve ever seen before?

sigh.

i suppose today i’ll just have to ask my ever-willing-and-patient translator for assistance.

or just do what i’ve done so many times before: make up my own stitches.