A few of the positive aspects of attending the BOD meeting this weekend in Williamsburg, VA:

• The company of many wonderful and entertaining friends.
• Having many folks correctly identify isenglass  as the creator of my pretty pink pendant that I wore in honor of her run.
• Observing how BOD meetings work.
• Discovering that apparently Texans are taught that Jamestown failed. :)  (need to send a note to correct that- since I was stunned to hear such a declaration I couldn't accurately refute it.)
• Yummy food, and particularly dessert, both at the lunch buffet, dinner at Sal's with findlaech  and stringmonkey , and brunch at Lulu's with Mike and halowenslut .
• Walking around Colonial Williamsburg with a group of widely different and equally wonderful folks.
• Getting quite a bit of progress made on my current embroidery project.

Making the one month overdue deadline for the craft-swap meme sadly isn't likely to happen either. But I did make progress and finished up one more pincushion and started on the next one. I also played around with dividing two different colors of 3 ply silk perl thread into three bi-color strands of 2-ply thread. It wasn't without some problems, but I have to say that the end result is pretty cool. The resulting stitching with a 2-ply of the Soie Perlee does get a finer, more densely packed and less fluffy detached buttonhole which does look closer to the originals I've seen. I wonder if I can take photos that are carefully cropped to not give away the whole before I can send them to their recipients, but still show things I've learned? Hmm... Of course I was just grooving on some reverse chain stitch on the ride home when Alan's sinus medicines tossed him into snooze-land, so I had to stop and take over driving.

We got home, picked up the Ladybug from the All Dogs Club, and arrived home with plenty of time to mow the lawn/pull out more evil vines and nap before the rain hit.

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This morning Ladybug broke a cardinal rule. Despite that she insisted on her walk and that we walked up and down the street in the pouring rain (hooray rain boots and umbrella) she did some "elimination" after the walk indoors instead of outside. Bad Dog! I cleaned it up since Alan's sinuses are continuing to be unkind to him, especially changes in position like cleaning something off the carpet would entail. Rotten creature. But she can be so cute when not messing on the carpet.

sigh.

 Here's comes the rain again...

I've seen fire and I've seen rain...

I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain-

Listen to the rhythm of the fallin' rain

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens-

I can't stand the rain, against my window-

I wish it would rain down, down on me

I'm only happy when it rains-

A little fall of rain, can hardly hurt me now-

I'm singing in the rain-
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I love the rain. Sometimes even at Pennsic, though this year was a bit extreme. For the past two nights I've opened the bedroom window a crack to listen to the rain. It is comforting and soothing. Many years ago, my maternal grandfather put a new tin roof on his house, because he loved the sound of rain on the tin roof. He passed away within that year from cancer, but for the last year of his life he was able to clearly listen to the rhythm of rain. I loved working rainy days at the pool, never minded sitting out as a lifeguard if folks wanted to swim in the rain, and in fact love swimming in the rain myself. I remember when my sisters and I were all much smaller, we used to sit on the front stoop of our ranch style house, snuggle up under towels and keep our heads dry and stick our feet out in the rain to feel the sprinkles. I don't remember what we talked about, but I do remember that as fun sister bonding time, watching the cars go down the street, or the birds play in the summer rain. So many happy memories associated with the rain, few sad ones.

To this day I still love the rain. I like it a little less so since it splashes on my glasses, but those are easily removed. I'm rarely seen using an umbrella since I like the feel of the rain on my head. The only real drawback to the rain here is the millions of IQs that drop when folks get on the road in the rain. sigh. Sadly we haven't found the cure or cause that turns humans into turkeys when the skies open.

But I'll take a few rainy days about now. It makes those few trees, that have turned colors, glossy and makes the reds and yellows pop more. I hope to see some of the poor ponds and rivers rise and expose less beach, which was honestly more depressing to me than a gray rainy day.

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Speaking of rain, it was actually quite damp on our visit to Plimoth. The windows gave us a muted light most of the time, instead of the bright sparkly sunshine we had on Sunday. The NC, VA, and MD folks embroidering were all re-adjusting to the concept of rain since we hadn't see it in so long. But the dampness in the air may have kept us from visiting the Indian Village at Plimoth, it didn't dampen our spirits. 

As far as progress, attack_laurel accomplished one trefoil leaf, two sparkly strawberries and calyx, and played around with the centers of two sweet peas in the sunshine yellow silk in the trellis stitch. I fear that my one trefoil leaf took me far too long. The constant changing of colors slowed me down considerably. The first day I spent outlining the leaf, tucking in the waste tails, and doing a bit of the detached buttonhole fill. The second day I was able to finish filling in the leaf with it's four colors, and I got started on the ceylon stitch on four thistle leaves. And on the last day I finished the 3 remaining spikey leaves on that one thistle, and got to outline the thistle flower in the new gilt sylke twist thread in the reverse chain stitch, and get the first row of detached buttonhole accomplished across the top of the flower. I really really wanted to stay and get more of the flower filled in, but we simply had to leave to go catch our plane home. Poor planning on my part. I kinda wish they would leave the work undone for me for next time, but that is a foolish request, so I didn't make it. No doubt there will be more fill for me to try with the new sparkly thread next time we visit. So that was likely 12 hours of embroidery of the 22 we spent there. The rest were spent in camaraderie, looking over the show and tell items, going back down into the stacks to see the cool pottery items, etc., eating the truly amazing food, and shopping for a bit.

We were also blessed with Tricia's presentation on the history, research, new materials, and progress on the jacket project so far. It was great to see slides of the many jackets they looked at and considered. They also showed that the pattern and lace are from the Laton jacket, but that the embroidery patterns are from a different jacket in the V&A. The presentation can't be posted online since there are many images they'd need rights for, but it was great to see in person. Tricia was also kind and showed us some of the different hands on the jacket that we are taking the embroidery from. They are trying to recreate the eccentricities as they find them. One sleeve has bug heads of a different color. There is only one unopened pansy on the jacket that differs from the entire rest of the pattern, which will be a fun Where's Waldo search on the finished item. But there is also visible obvious evidence of different hands on the jacket from the embroidery workshop. More than one person worked on the original jacket, which really supports the theory that they were not one woman's home project. And the two carnations she showed us to display the different hands could not be more night and day. One was a very tightly done calyx, and one was all loose and puffy. It really made us all feel better to see the variety of quality even on the original. 

The research is fascinating, the new materials are inspiring, and the project as a whole is amazing. Get involved now if you can. You won't regret it. The project is called a Paradise in Silk and Gold, and boy will it be.