Last week, I mailed my final assignments to the instructor of my Embroiderer’s Guild of America Individual Correspondence Course. It took me way-yonder longer to finish the course than the EGA predicted, but my instructor was most patient and accommodating. My goal was to complete the course by the end of 2006, and I made it. Yay!
I meant to take a picture of the final assignment–an original design using techniques learned in the class–for the blog, but was so excited to get it in the mail I forgot.

A new project is underway. It’s Mike’s design, and is a follow-up to Puzzle Pisces. Yep, it’s a jigsaw puzzle! This design was started years ago, but things like our cross-country Live Trunk Show Tour and building our house put it on hold again and again. The design is not complete, but I’ve begun stitching. Lots of designing (for us, anyway) takes place during the stitching.

Aside: The last cell of the What in the World? pattern was unplanned during most of the stitching. I think we were playing with 3 possibilities, and hadn’t decided. Then, with all but one cell stitched (or was it two cells?), Mike selected the final image. Well. The choice upset the overall color balance. In the end, I ripped 2 beautifully stitched cells in order to rearrange them so that the colors were distributed in a way we liked. Sometimes it’s hard to be us!

Last week, I stitched one of the internal elements in overdyed thread to test my chosen technique and demonstrate to Mike the shading effects of overdyed thread; he wanted to see it in context. End result: he approved the overdyed thread, and I worked out the stitching technique I’ll use to get the color shading I want.

That sample is now a stitched doodle. Needlework Nutshell readers know how much I love doodles. I often turn them into fridge magnets, but I’m inclined to make this one into a wearable pin or zipper pull or keychain. It’s cool enough to be something, anyway.

Naturally, I’m not telling what the design is, but I will drop hints here in the blog while I’m stitching, so that fellow gamesters can try to guess. Ooo! Maybe there should be a prize for the first correct guess…maybe the doodle should be the prize!

Yep, Everything is a game.