As promised.

Isn't that a droll little face? There it is, the now finished embroidery that will become the Nutcracker Ornament. The pattern was featured in Cross Stitch and Country Crafts, in the November/December 1987 issue. Some time ago when the stitching was nearly finished, I noticed that the left side of the black area of his crown was accidentally stitched in a very dark navy blue. You can't tell unless you take it outside into sunlight. No one will see it on the romantic mood-lit Christmas tree where it's going to end up. Maybe the blue in the crown was what stopped me, but no, I think it was sheer procrastination that kept this tidbit from fruition. To finish, it will need a good wash and press, and then I'll sew up the back on a sewing machine, and sew black felt circles at top and bottom (but first attach the hanging loop with a gold bead) and stuff the insides. Nineteen years. It took me almost nineteen years to finish it.

Now some of the other unfinished stitchery projects I have in my workshop have come to mind. The pineapple candlewicked pillow and the Eastern European cross-stitched pillow (started by a resident of Berlin when the Wall was still up) were inherited from others, so I don't think they exactly count. I have one sampler I initiated in 1992, and I know this because I had a Certain Person in mind when I started it, and when they departed my vicinity I guess I just put the embroidery away. I think I'm about a third of the way through it. I should finish it for myself.

I have actually finished a bunch of other projects, but don't have them to show; I gave them away. Maybe that's the secret... wait, no, I have two bread cloths that I've made. Okay, so that excuse doesn't fly.

When I was in Germany in 1987 (at the height of my embroidery period) I purchased two very cool tablecloths at KaDeWe in Berlin. One has an attractive rose design in cross-stitch stamped on it, and the other is meant to have the Three Wise Men worked up in crewel embroidery. I have always meant to do the Magi in an interesting assortment of wools and silks, put jewels on them, maybe do some applique work or trapunto, etc. but never had the cash to start collecting the stuff when I had time to mess with it. I have resources now, though, and should make an effort to check out the embroidery wools while I'm hunting up new and exciting Sockotta balls on my travels. The rose tablecloth can be worked in an assortment of any nice threads that will serve the design so I have no excuses whatsoever for that... except I do remember eyeballing some real silk thread at one time... The DMC company has created some wonderful new threads in the past few years so this might be the time to dig out the tablecloth and get stitchin'.

I am not giving those tablecloths away. I want to use them one day.

During my PhD, I took up hardanger embroidery and actually finished a bread cloth for a friend before starting a small doily for myself, which is not finished. I eyeballed silk ribbon embroidery but it just didn't get me all that excited. I feel the same way about hardanger, so that's a good excuse there.

When we moved into this house and created my workshop space, I remarked to my husband that I had enough craft projects under our roof to keep me busily creating probably for the rest of my life.

One of the women I work with does cross-stitch all the time, and whenever there's a wedding or something like that she triumphantly pulls a finished item out of a closet. W-- gave us two beautiful matching pillowcases embroidered with ivy.

When The Emperor was gravely ill once, I took him to the hospital and when they shooed me out I went straight to Ben Franklin (across the street from the hospital, those smart cookies) and got one of those pre-stamped dresser scarves. I nearly completed it at my husband's bedside and when we got home, I finished it up and gave it to my assistant, who had kept things running in the office during our crisis.

And then, while visiting Battle last year, I put up no resistance whatever to the counted cross-stitch kit of a scene from the Bayeaux Tapestry. It included all of the yarns and the Hardanger cloth to complete it. Someday.

At one time, my mother got out a pillowcase from the closet, stamped a bunch of those iron-on designs onto it, and started stitching on it but didn't finish it (see? It's in the blood). Maybe twenty years later, not long after her death, I ran across it (it had been re-absorbed into the linen closet but hadn't been used much, half-stitched as it was) and started working on it again. I'm probably three flowers short of a full bunch on that one. Okay, that settles it. My next Gonna Finish It, By Golly (right after I sew up that Nutcracker) is going to be that pillow case. After that, it's that Dutch Girl flour sack towel that's about halfway done.

Plus the sock. Plus Pellew's Pelisse. Plus some Woolly Hats.

Sheesh.