Today - Susan & Embroidery

Today, I'll make my way to Oceanside to see Susan. She is a woman who loves color and fabric, almost to excess. But her love makes life exciting for me because she brings a type of joy to life that I don't naturally see every day.


Susan and I used to work at the same company, but we didn't really know each other. She was QA, and I was development, so our paths crossed. When she left the company, I caught her going to the parking lot as she was ready to leave, and I found that she lived only doors away from me. Somehow we agreed to meet early mornings and start walking Poway. We began to meet two or three times a week, at 6:00 in the morning, and just take off exploring the hills and valleys around our neighborhood. Such wonderful fun, for probably about a year. And then Susan moved to Oceanside and our frequent walks were disrupted. Thank goodness, we kept in touch.

Susan and I knew we had a friendship in the making when we learned that we both were proud possessors of a strange book by Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976. Why anyone would ever buy that book, I don't know, but both Susan and I did!

Over the last few weeks, to celebrate Susan's love of color, I made her a shrug that I'll take to her today (upper right). I have made several of these for myself, and I hope she loves hers as much as I love mine. It's a wonderful thing just to throw on in the morning, and the pattern is so simple, you can experiment with fabrics. I have one that's flannel lined (the pattern isn't lined, but it's easy to do), one where I experimented with some fabric that I had pieced, and another that's basic black, with embroidery, which you can throw over anything and wear out to a dressier occasion. The pattern is McCalls 3880, and I'm not sure it's even still in the pattern book. It should be!




Here's a picture of a pillowcase I'm hand embroidering. The pillowcase comes pre-stamped, but I'm using my own color and stitch scheme. I had purchased several of these for Mom, and she didn't get them all done before she died in 2003. I will now finish them, learning to embroidery many stitches along the way. Embroidery is a wonderful small craft that travels well. Hopefully, I can become somewhat proficient and learn some beautiful stitches.

It just started raining. Susan and I were going to visit some gardens today, but maybe we'll just spend the time inside chatting and catching up on the time since we've last seen each other. Her home has a detatched guest apartment, and she's recently redone it. I'm excited to see what she's done. My little pink Tracker and I will gingerly make our way to Oceanside in just a couple hours.