I've been having an Upstairs/Downstairs watch-a-thon this weekend. I'm now on season three, which I borrowed from the library and the due date is approaching, so I've got to watch all thirteen episodes over my long break (four days isn't really long I must note--and there is only one day left...sigh). I think I've gotten up to episode eight so I'm making good progress. James Bellamy is married and he and his wife (middle class girl) are at a country house party with all sorts of shenanigans going on. Whenever I watch movies I like to stitch, so I've had ample time this weekend to work on a couple of projects.
I don't think I've shared my "Mystery Sampler" progress in a while here, so as you see it is coming along nicely. This is the middle section of a five part design. Each section is stitched on different color linen using the same floss color palette, which will be sewed together when I finish. This part has the most stitch intensive motifs--lots of solid stitching which takes time as I am a slow worker. The grass has smyrna stitches--which are the bumpy things you see. The roof will also have special stitches--eyelets which I am not overly fond of making but there aren't too many to do. I'd like to have this entire project finished by the end of the year and I think I might actually manage it as the last two sections look a little less labor-intensive than this one.
Do you remember this sampler I was working on earlier in the year? After February passed my motivation sort of languished with my desire to see nice weather. All that snow I'll need to fill in soon just didn't appeal at the time, but as I was flipping through projects to work on, I decided to pull this one out again. I had forgotten all about it to be honest, but as the small project I was going to start was missing floss colors (and I was too lazy to dig through bins to find a skein of it), and this one was ready to go, "February" it was. I think I might keep going now and not bother with anything new for a while.
I finished Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises earlier today. After dragging my feet a bit I quite enjoyed the story. I think my problem was trying to read it in fits and starts and with the style of storytelling it just wasn't working well. Since I've read most of the books in the last three days I was able to get into the story and spend lots of time with it. I do want to write about it, but I think I'll need some time to think about it and maybe read more about it. I've already pulled out Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy to work on as my next classic read. I mentioned before that I tried to read it several years back, but I only made it to about page 82 before setting it aside. I hope to do better now as it very much appeals to my mood.
As it is almost June and we're quickly approaching the midway mark of the year I was looking at the list of books I've read this year and noticed every single book on the list was written in the 20th or 21st centuries. One was published in 1899, but somehow that feels like cheating to consider it a 19th century book. I try and read a variety of books, but I'm not doing a very good job it seems. That said I was just thinking how I would love to pick up a really good, edge of your seat, can't put it down thriller. I'll be looking through my piles, though I know the last thing I need to do is start a new book. You know how that goes, though.