The ongoing story...

“It can’t be happening!”  The Mad Stitcher almost ran to the sofa to investigate that spot of light blue peeking out from behind the cushion.  “No, No!”  She cried.  Her beautiful Nativity Stocking was a mass of crushed and wrinkled Aida.  Now these were not the ordinary little wrinkles.  These were the kinds of wrinkles that happen when someone sleeps on them and wallows on them and totally mangles them!  And everyone knows you cannot get these kinds of wrinkles out.  That’s what she gets for laying the freshly washed and pressed piece on the back of her sofa to admire.   She never noticed when it had fallen behind Jason as he slept.  What would she do now?  Stitching it again was the only thing she could think of, but only the good Lord knows if she was going to get everything done once—much less doing something twice!  Well, she couldn’t worry about it now.  So after her cry, she got back to “Magnolia.”

The stitching was going well.  And soon she was once again lost in this beautiful design.  MS stitched for the rest of the evening and into the wee hours of the morning.  Bo was restless and kept waking up so she knew she wouldn’t get any sleep.  She finally went to bed at about 3:30 am and was able to sleep until 7:00.  As much as she wanted to get back to her stitching, MS had to go check on Mom.  So after breakfast she got Bo ready and away they went.  Mom wasn’t feeling well and had several things that she needed MS to do.  Mom also had senile dementia and was almost as forgetful as Bo.  (But not quite!)  Her checkbook was a mess and it took MS almost an hour to straighten it out.  When the bills were paid and the notes written and Mom was positive that everything was done to her satisfaction, MS took her leave with the promise to call her later.  She decided to run a few errands while she was out.

She was finally able to get back to her stitching after Bo was in bed.  He was exhausted after the day of running here and there, and hopefully he would sleep better tonight.  They had only  one scavenger hunt all day, so all told it had been a fair day.

The days passed with pretty much the same routine.  “Magnolia” was coming along nicely, Bo was keeping life interesting, and MS was trying to keep what little was left of her sanity!  On the morning of the 13^th the final stitch was placed in “Magnolia” and MS could have cried with relief.  As much as she loved to stitch and as much as she loved this design, she really HATED deadlines!—especially one of such importance.  She placed a call to Karen to find out what to do next.  Should she mail it back or would Karen prefer to meet her somewhere to get the completed piece?  Because of time constraints with the photographer, printers, etc., it was decided that they would meet at The Stitch & Frame Shop the next day.  This suited the Mad Stitcher, as she needed to restock some Krieniks and beads.

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