Once in a blue moon...

Yes, it's a blue moon - the one we are told things happen only the once in, but which turns out to describe the second full moon in a 4 week cycle. As the saying suggests though, they come around but infrequently, and if today is anything to go by, I say THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT!

Thankyou to Michael Rhyne for this photo - it's amazing isn't it?

I was up bright and early and full of creative beans, and I also felt inspired to do some 'finishing off' - this should have been my clue that the wisest action at such times is to crawl back under the duvet until tomorrow. Like all good creative types I always have lots of work in progress, and many things which never quite make it out of the work in progress basket. My first job of the day was to tackle one of these.

I stitched, very carefully and lovingly, a beautiful sampler in my favourite colour, red. I did the stitching, uh hum <cough>, in 2011... It has been languishing in many a to-do list to get this sampler framed. After all, I did spend about four months sewing it. It is pretty big and very complex, guaranteed to be a test for your eyesight and your patience. It was done by way of a graph thingy (I'm sure there's a proper embroidery term for this, but I don't know it! Oh, hang on, turns out it's a chart), which I bought from The Historical Sampler Company. Just to complicate things a little more, I opted for using some rather lovely irish linen instead of the nice simple Aida suggested by the chart designers. They may have had a point there!

So, I've been meaning to send this to the picture framers, but pennies are a little tight and there always seems to be a bit more month left after the budget has been blown (mostly in yarn shops!), so I decided I'd do it myself. I mean, how hard can it be? I've been carrying the dimensions around in my handbag for months, and found one in Ikea that, whilst being a little bit larger, would do the trick nicely. Then I was told it needed to be mounted on acid free mounting board. Ah, a little fly in the ointment.

Then last week I was in Bristol and popped into a shop known locally as Wilcos (Wilkinsons) - I'd never been in there before and so had a field day buying all the folders and post its I would need for the coming study year (OK, for the rest of my life would be nearer the point), and then I discovered they do cheap picture frames... And one EXACTLY the right size (give or take a centimetre or two). So in the shopping bag it went, only to languish for another week while I built up the courage to have a bash.

OK, so it turns out the frame is cheap because the glass is actually 'glass' (aka plastic) but, beggars can't be choosers... After all, if I could choose I'd have a solid oak frame made and mounted by a professional!

I used the mount they supplied to sew the embroidery over - I've seen this in books and it looks just like lacing up a corset. Not that I have ever laced up a corset, but I've watched enough Merchant Ivory films to know ALL about it, and I imagine it's kind of similar. The first hints that things were not going according to plan began when I couldn't thread my needle... Oh, it turned out I was trying to thread a pin! (lol)

Into the frame it went and BAZINGA, I had a somewhat disappointing grand reveal... It's only blooming wonky. So once in blue moon, I am inspired to have a go at something that surely, can't be that hard - only to find that actually, it is. But hey, I have done another once in a blue moon thing... I've finished a long term project! That's got to be worth a Blue Moon Hurrah.

(oops it looks like that 'glass' is rather reflective!)


While we're on the subject of Blue Moon Disasters... I managed to make a total BMD in the kitchen today too. I had a sudden craving for Falafel after someone mentioned Berlin and Food in their blog. When I went to Berlin - around the same time as the famous wall was coming down - I ate endless Falafel, and so it thus, the Falafel Capital of Europe in my mind. Well my falafel were falfelling awful. I don't know what went wrong but I believe they ought to have been renamed Fa-LAUGH-el.

And those pictures are of the best ones! The rest were faluaghel goo paste. Needless to say my gills are now feeling a little green (well, there was nothing else for dinner!) and I am now on the ultimate quest for a fool-proof (or should that be Rachel-proof?) falafel recipe.

Happy Blue Moon folks, and thank goodness they only come once in the proverbial ;-)