A Bluestocking Knits

I’m still a bit at sea with WordPress — but I got a few things rearranged for the blog layout, at least got rid of that interloper’s “About Me” (for those of you who didn’t see it, this particular template came with an “About Me” that was about somebody else, some presumably-generic person, and perplexingly, that actually posted on this blog).  Anyway —

I have managed to finish a cross stitch project, an alphabet that was included in New Künstlichs Modelbuch, a small book of needlework charts published by Bernhard Jobin ca. 1600, and generously reproduced by the Met.

I re-charted mine to be oriented vertically and widened it a smidge, as I wanted it to fit this particular frame, but the letters themselves are as in the original.  It’s worked on the piece of 36-count “Legacy” by Picture This Plus that I had left over from “Awake My Soul” — it’s a bit too mottled for my taste, and so I decided to use it for this as the letters covered up a lot of it (!).  The thread is the lovely “Brethren Blue” from The Gentle Art.  (And I’m happy to freely share my chart of the original version, but you’ll have to ask in a comment, as I have no idea yet how to post a PDF here ….)

And in other worlds, well, when I first heard about the then-upcoming “be a hobbit” computer game from Wētā Workshop, I thought, “That’s for me!”  I waited and waited, and the first reviews when the game was eventually released were not very complimentary, and I thought, “Hmm, I’ll give it a try anyway,” and I’m glad I did.  I’m having a lot of fun with it, I have to say!  Not being a gamer, I suppose I’m not the best judge of it as a game per se, and there are certainly odd little bugs and glitches here and there, and some things that just don’t make sense (how does a mixing bowl make foods go from tender to crisp, for heaven’s sake!), but you know, sometimes it’s nice just to stop and admire the scenery —

to watch the sun rise, or the snow falling —

to come home after a long day’s foraging or fishing, to a cosy little hobbit hole —

Actually, I’ve “finished” the main goal of the game, which is to make friends with all of the main character hobbits, and now I’m spending my “days” doing Club missions, little goals sort of like merit badges in Scouts — “Catch 5 Softmouth Trout” or “Harvest 3 2-Star Beans” or “Cook a 3-star meal with Eggplant,” which is pleasantly low-key and just the sort of thing I want these days.  Even though one dashes by most of the time, I’m very pleased with how I’ve arranged my upper garden —

and I have to confess that after Fosco Burrows made me a present of a bath tub, I was so excited that I spent a good real-time hour or so yesterday afternoon turning the original little bedroom off the kitchen into a bath room! I re-tiled the floor and everything! —

(These last two “photos” — yes, there’s a Photo mode, because of course you want to take pictures of all the decorating you’ve done! — were on two different “days,” a rainy evening and a sunny morning, because I took so long trying to get good angles that I fell asleep right there!).

And another thing is that all of the cooking one does makes me very hungry.  One of the first things I cooked in-game was Bundle of Sperage Rolled in Bacon — wild asparagus with a wodge of cheese all wrapped up in bacon, oh my goodness!  Raised Cheese Bread!  Mrs. Cotton’s Amazing Autumn Tart!