A Brief Needlework Interruption

Please will the embroidery elves just finish this overnight!
It is nice outside and I want to go out and play

Can I just complain about my needlework for a moment?  Who was the idiot who thought she should make TWO caskets in one 18-month period while making the instructions available every month??  That means that the panels HAVE to be done so the instructions can go up on time.  Did that masochist realize that meant embroidering on a deadline every month for more than a year??

Yea, it really seemed like a great idea about 15 months ago.  I have spent this week trying to get this panel done and really thought that 'today was the day' that it would be all done and I could move on to the instructions for the Harmony piece and charting this one.  I can already tell that it won't be done today and that has made my mood very sour as my body is getting so sore sitting in this chair!!

Ok.  Complaint over.  Each day I have a theme of the day in my video watching.  It has to be something that I am interested in, which means almost always a history or science documentary.  It also has to be something that doesn't make me cry - so no chick-flicks!  Crying gets in the way of progress.  Also needs to be something I don't have to watch to understand - again, the focus is on progress!

Well, in celebration of our new American Princess (I know she won't be a princess in title) I have been watching royal family documentaries for a week.  Can't watch The Crown season 2 as I will look up too much.  But I did stumble onto something today on PBS that was an 'ah-ha' moment of interest to the needlework world.  There is a cheesy Royal Wedding Watch program every night on PBS with Meredith Vieira.  Well last night's episode was all on 'what to wear' and of course they visited the Royal School of Embroidery to talk about 'if' they were working on Megan's dress and talk about Catherine's.   But go to 27 minutes into the episode and they start talking about Harry's garment for the wedding (speculation)!  That is when it is revealed that William and Harry don't just reach into their closet of ceremonial uniforms and grab one - they have one made for the day!!  They visited a North London tailoring operation which is working 24-7 right now making suits and uniforms for the wedding for guests, officials, royal staff and the royals.  And you guessed it - they are covered in gold braid and bullion, purls, etc.

DUH.  Followed by head slap.

Yes, I put two and two together about my current frustration about the pace of my threads coming in from - you guessed it - gold thread makers.  Yea, no wonder the schedule is off.  An emergency royal wedding.  (A personal plea to the Queen - please live to be 100+ because I don't think us embroiderers can deal with the drought of a funeral and coronation!).  And it is oh-so important that the threads and fabrics be English made.  Yup...at my lecture last night when I was listening to the laminations of the lack of GST and Purls in many colors.  Well, you can blame Harry for falling in love!

In fact the industry of a handful of gold thread makers can't handle a funeral/coronation and so they have already been embroidering for the presumed funeral back in 2014 during my last tour of England.  So as you watch all those sparkly uniforms go by on Saturday morning at the Wedding - realize that many of them were spruced up or made new for this event... and that effects our materials stream!

Tricia