Thursday, March 5, 2009

One Small Repair

It started so innocently. It was gonna be easy. And then OCD entered the picture ... again. I know I mention OCD rather often in my posts, and it's true that I'm self-diagnosed (although my daughter Nikki blames me for all of her own OCD traits). But, my goodness, I can turn the simplest task into really hard work.

If you'll think back to my last post, I showed you my progress on Lo How a Rose and confessed that I had made a little boo boo. As I finally sat down to stitch last night (conference week is getting in the way of my fun), I decided to start by fixing the little boo boo, which was one misplaced stitch in the H in HaLF. What do you do when you have just one or two little stitches to fix? I usually try to remove as little as possible from the surrounding area, run my cut threads underneath other stitches, and sneak in there with a needle and thread and repair whatever I've undone. Not so brilliant an idea when it's a letter stitched over-one. It took me a solid hour to do something that should've taken a few minutes! All of those short little threads to pull under not-so-many available threads. Thinking back, it would've been a better idea to just rip out the H altogether and restitch it. But NO! I made it a crazy perfection session.

OK (huge sigh) ... I feel much better now that I have that off my chest. It's occurred to me many times that if I make myself this nutty over a few stitches, I must drive other people over the edge. And there are still people out there who are my friends! So no pics for now ... maybe tomorrow after I've had an evening of sitting and stitching with a vodka & tonic next to me (because of conference week, today is my Friday), and I've completed all of those lovely little letters. I'm so looking forward to it. But first, I'd better stop procrastinating and clean off my desk. There are many more conferences to attend this afternoon and evening.

Make some fun.

8 comments:

staci said...

I feel your pain!!! Hope you're having a great "frogless" day :)

Deb said...

Aughhh. I've been there myself many times. It's so painful frogging when you're stitching over one. Hope today is much, much better.
Deb

Barb said...

Oh my yes, you are not alone out there. I've tried to fix things this way, only to get myself into trouble. I do the same thing with knitting. It think that there is a little OCD going on anyway with counted thread work. It's part of our need to have things neat and tidy rather than freehand helter skelter!

Chocolates4Breakfast (Terri ~ Boog) said...

I hate to admit it Doris but if at all possible, I let the mistakes go and work around them. I hate to frog over one stitching. Can't wait to see your next progress update. We have to attend conferences next week but I sure don't envy you or all the other teachers that have to hold all those conferences. Thanks to you and them, for all you do!!!

Brigitte said...

I've been there, too. I hope it won't happen again to you on LO.
By now conference week is over and you can relax and enjoy your weekend.

Siobhán said...

Over one frogging... Reason #901 why I don't do much over one work--because I need to fix my mistakes a LOT! Hopefully this is the last of it with Lo, you've put in your time, now may the rest of it all be frogless. ;) Enjoy your weekend!

Siobhán said...

Over one frogging... Reason #901 why I don't do much over one work--because I need to fix my mistakes a LOT! Hopefully this is the last of it with Lo, you've put in your time, now may the rest of it all be frogless. ;) Enjoy your weekend!

Von said...

Ugh, ripping out over-one stitching is the hardest! I haven't done a lot of over-one work, but it is very much worth the effort to get the smaller, more delicate effect.