My very first embroidery project

(featuring some pretty poor photography)

It was only a matter of time. Couldn't be helped. Philip loves the heart but felt that the mushroom's colors evoked that dingy seventies period of time in which brown, ochre, orange, and old avocado green were as chic as it could get.

I would love to have done a red and white mushroom, or orange and white, but in all my gathering of felt and thread I managed to come home without any white. He has a point, but I still like the mushroom a lot. I don't have nearly enough mushrooms in my life. I always loved mushrooms (both to eat and to look at, especially the poisonous kinds-to look at, not to eat.) Lucille from Forest Whimsy is the one who showed me how much cool mushroom decor is out there. I now have the ambition to have a mushroom theme in my kitchen. Orange with white spots. I can tell a trip to Boersma's Fabrics is inevitable today.

I am looking towards Valentines day for here in the shop. Generally speaking, I think Valentines day is pretty bogus. A day when the lonely are invited to kill themselves in preference to useless pining for unrequited love. A day when unpaired people are made to feel their alone-ness. I realize it's not meant to be cruel, but it is. It starts in grade school with the horrible habit of counting how many valentines everyone gets. Teachers attempt to prevent this, but to no avail. Max felt loveless as early as his last year in preschool. People have asked me why I care so much since I've been married for so long and am never alone on Valentines day. While it's true that I have myself a pretty darn steady sweetheart in my spouse, I spent years being the one who got no flowers, no special dinner, no date, no phone call. Not even a secret admirer.

Which is just as well anyway. I'm not exactly a romantic person.

I think there should be a holiday that celebrates the single life. A holiday that only applies to those unpaired people who don't have to answer to anyone else, who can do whatever they want when they want to. A holiday that celebrates the many advantages to living alone, and the many advantages of not having a date. A day to make all paired up people feel a pang of nostalgia for what they gave up, to feel their ball-and-chains drag a little more heavily for one day.

Anyway, I have to do something for Valentines day in my store. I don't have to be all sweet about it if I don't want to. But in the dead of winter Valentines day is just about the only occasion people go shopping for. So I was trying to think of some things I could make for the shop that would be in the spirit of Valentine's Day without making anyone go into precious-sugar-shock. That's how I came up with the heart key chain. I'd like to come up with a more acerbic version. Though I do really like this one.

I love hand stitching, so it's not surprising that I really enjoyed doing the stitch work on these pieces. I practiced on some muslin first. The french knots were tricky until I got the hang of it, then they were satisfyingly easy. I want to cover everything in them. Next stop: returning to my knitting basket. Lisa has inspired me to take up simple knitting again.

I'm going to admit something here (which I may already have admitted about five hundred times): I miss being a housewife. A homesteader. Being a career gal has many advantages. If I have to be working I really couldn't ask for a better job. (I guess I could ask for one that won't land me in debter's prison, but, whatever.) Still, I miss the homelife where I can persue whatever projects I want to without having to make sure it's something useful for the store. I miss cooking every day. I miss having time to garden. I miss the rhythm and flow of housekeeping. I don't want Philip to be the househusband. He's doing a pretty darn good job of trading off between home and store, but it's so much more natural for me to do all that stuff. I like doing it all. I miss the days when he had a well paying job and left in the mornings and came back in the evening. I liked making sure he had lunches to bring. I liked making good dinners for him to come home to. I had more energy to give to my kid when he wasn't in school.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not regretting starting my store, it's just that I was so proud of being a good housewife. I knew I was good at it. Now I'm doing a lot that I'm not so sure I'm good at. There's so much less freedom in running a store than running a house. I am naturally a home-body. I miss home. That's all. What I need to do is make a million dollars so I can sell the business and become a housewife again. Any ideas?