A Happy Ending Story

Okay, so, last week was all about the Sewing. This week, it's gonna be all about Cross Stitch.

Knitting, while immensely portable, and while I tend to actually knit more than anything else these days, isn't my primary craft. I'm actually a cross-stitcher that knits a lot (and, as it turns out, doesn't cross-stitch that much). So, let me tell you a story...

Once, long, long ago, there was a wonderful woman named Thea Dueck who designed all sorts of lovely cross-stitch patterns. More than cross-stitch, her samplers were full of all sorts of lovely specialty stitches. She offered to help people with the tricky bits via on-line "Cyberclasses", and even in person during special Stitching Retreats.

One little CraftyGryphon dipped her paw into the world of Victoria Sampler, even going so far as to take several Cyberclasses, go on at least one retreat (thousands of miles away), and, in a panic the week before her wedding, order EVERY SINGLE DESIGN Victoria Sampler had published up to that point from a local needlework store, plus all the specialty floss kits to stitch those designs. (They *still* talk about that one up there.)

Anyway, early in 2007, Thea announced that the Very Special Project for the 2007 Stitching Retreat that fall would be a special Twelve Days of Christmas bellpull, or, if one wanted, twelve little ornaments. The little CraftyGryphon just about swooned, practically deafened her husband with all the squealing, and signed up immediately, despite the fact that the new roof wasn't paid off quite yet, and the doors hadn't been installed in the back of the house.

Events (and construction) intervened, and the little CraftyGryphon couldn't go on the Wonderful Trip to Victoria to stitch her very own Twelve Days of Christmas bellpull. Oh, the wailing! The sadness! The incessant whimpering! How she suffered! (How her husband suffered! He, after all, had to listen to all of it. He was very good about not rolling his eyes more than once a day, though.)

Then, in 2008, Thea made an announcement. There would be a Twelve Days of Christmas Bellpull Cyberclass! Cue the squealing, the spinning around in happy circles! Cue the charging of the credit card! Within a week a box from Canada arrived, full of fabric and floss and a lovely red folder for class notes. Each item was carefully removed, patted, sorted and placed back in the box, awaiting the beginning of class...

Class finally started on June 5th (with the fabric being prepped on June 4th, in the middle of a huge thunder/tornado storm). All the available lesson files were promptly downloaded, and a welcome message was posted in the class board (which, sadly, managed to post itself almost a dozen times. Hopefully, one of the moderators will be able to fix it!).

Next time: Actual Progress!