A new Best Friend

Sunday night and after an extremely busy weekend I feel exhausted to start the week.   Not good as the young woman with whom I shared the work load at the office has been seconded to a job at the Prison for six months and I will be bearing the load alone.   Hopefully all will go well.

Yesterday was Embroiderers' Guild monthly meeting and there were workshops to attend.   A choice from two -  a small fabric notebook or an introduction to Portugese Whitework.  Three guesses which one I chose?

I think I am likely to become very good friends with this wonderfully precise technique.  Wrapped bars, bullions and buttonhole eyelets in abundance.  But I love being able to precisely control the thread and to know that the final product is correct.  Counting is very important in this work.   Corners are multiples of 4 and bars are multiples of 6 and unlike Hardanger you cut and draw the thread as you work around the foundation.  It's fun learning something new.
The sample is on a rather coarse aida fabric and stitched with #8 perle thread but I am looking forward to beginning a project on a finer fabric and thread.   I'm thinking a biscornu to begin with but there is a wonderful runner in Yvette Stanton's book which would look wonderful on the top of my Chinese carved chest.   Don't get carried away Margaret - finish the current projects first!

My list for the weekend is all crossed off.   I stitched up a small cardigan for the HD3QBEM to give to great grand-daughter #1, cooked the meals for the coming week, wrote three letters for tomorrow's post, had my hair cut, did the cleaning, wrote the menu, did the grocery shopping, finished my book and emptied my washing basket.  
What a pity that most of those items will be on next weekend's list too!