French Knots and Sandy Stitching

As of Friday night, all my fabric is packed away.  I think I'm clinically depressed now.  No projects, no plans, nothing!  I like to keep busy and I like to have something to work on at all times, and while I'm technically working on setting up a whole new life in a different city, there's nothing to distract me.  That was my plan, after all; if my fabric was away, I could focus more on the task at hand.  But that task kind of sucks and I wish I was making a dress instead.

While Sandy was blowing through early last week, I started on a couple hand-sewing projects, as I didn't know if/when the power would go out.  I didn't want to rely on my machine if we wouldn't have electricity for days.  Thankfully, D.C. was lucky and we didn't lose power for even a minute.  But I still had plenty to keep me busy while I watched the news coverage of the storm.

I'll have a mini quilt up on Squaring Up tomorrow, but this was the embroidery project.  My cousin Jesse graciously let me sleep in her bed while I was in Charlotte a couple weeks ago, so I made this as a thank you.  I'll give it to her whenever I see her next, which could be very soon!

Jesse had a lot of blues and greens in her apartment (minus Grace's room, which is all pink, all the time), and I remember she picked up something chartreuse while we were out and mentioned she liked that color.  I chose four blues and a bright green I had in my floss stash.

French knots are...tedious, and for a long time, I didn't think this would ever come together.  Because I'm dramatic.  The knots are three-ply, if anyone was wondering.  To get the "j," I cut out a piece of stabilizer in the shape of the letter, ironed it on, and started knotting.  Once I had the basic idea of the letter's boundaries, I removed it and just went with what felt right.

My original plan was to do the entire hoop.  I now realize I was crazy.  This many knots took me two days.

But, I do like it, and it certainly kept me busy while I was worrying about the storm, and then the job, and then the move.  I'm still worrying, but now I have nothing in my hands.

On a different note, we've had a bit of trouble finding somewhere to live that fits our living criteria and is affordable and is in a safe neighborhood.  We wrote out everything we wanted today and we're hoping the universe takes note, because we'd like to move!  Please!