February 10th 2016: some beading

In an effort to get a post out the pictures of my needlework were taken quickly, wrinkled and when the weather was overcast moment. Oh well.

Last week in spite of everything going on, or because of it (more below) I stitched quite a bit on Mermaids of the Deep Blue and finished the right mermaid's body. I'm now up to the shoulders/arms/face and hair for them both. While I have always admired the mermaids and fairies it's always the Mirabilia ladies I tend to stitch so this one is a bit of a departure for me and it seems so weird to be stitching a fish tail/body/fins... like the act of stitching it has really bought home how bizarre the mermaid concept really is. I mean even a fairy in comparison is a human with some wings attached to the back... could even be a costume.

Because it's the weather is overcast the fabric in this photo is way off - so blue when it is in fact green.

Last week much to my surprise my order from 123Stitch.com arrived. It was so quick: I ordered on January 21st, it was shipped on the 23rd, and arrived in NZ on the 2nd February. All up less than two weeks quite possibly the fastest delivery in over 13 years of stitching. I ordered beads, fabric and charts so I'm impressed that they had it all in stock.

The main reason for the order is that I have two Mirabilia's waiting on beads so now they have arrived I have put the mermaids aside and gone back to Persephone to bead the design to complete it. I didn't want to avoid the task for no good reason. I am always so so surprised at how long it takes to bead. I used to estimate a few hours, now I think it will take a few days which is still underestimating the job - it takes a week or more. Persephone also seems to me to be a big design, even for a Mirabilia and has a lot of beads. So here's a shot of some of the beads (many more to be stitched!):

Again it's overcast so not the best photo

I decided to complete the backstitch/beads on the blackwork pattern behind her at the same time so this has also slowed me down as I have figured it out. I like the look of long stitches but I couldn't get good tension and the thread was being carried too far. I didn't want to couch the stitches down so in the end I reverted to normal backstitch. I used the dark coloured floss to attach the beads using a full cross and the second leg 'hugs' the bead (because it's two strands of floss) instead of going through it. For the rest of the beads I will use invisible thread so no floss will show through.

I specifically did the back stitching parts first while I could still use q-snaps. I can't put qsnaps over beads so a lot of them will be attached in hand.

As alluded to last week was one of the worst in a long time. Our beloved cat Cleo got very very sick and it was impossible to figure out why. She's been getting sick, not eating much and loosing weight since October 2015 and we have been investigating this since the start of the year. Last week it suddenly became very acute she stopped eating all together, we changed her food in order to get her to eat anything, and she vomited all day (the carpet is a wreck now) Wednesday and started finding dark places to hide like under beds and in closets. I was at this stage certain that she had stomach cancer or something like that and was basically dying. I was so upset and depressed. She is 10 years old so heading into 'senior cat' stage but still quite young. I've had her since I was 21 and she is such a huge part of our lives I can't imagine not having her.

I am happy to say that was the low point and since then she has been getting better. But we still don't know what's been happening since October and if last week was related to the overall problem or because we changed her food. Our vet is reluctant to investigate any further now that last week's crises is over but Jonathan and I would like to figure out what's going on as she can't continue to decline and loose weight - and it might be something treatable?