Because it's getting cold again, and because I've lost a little weight, I've been digging through some boxes of clothing pulling out things I haven't worn in a while.  And I realized that sometimes my judgment in clothing has been considered...ah...questionable, by my friends.  And even on occasion by myself.  So, to remind myself that perhaps I should be less judgmental when it comes to other people's outfits, I'm posting a few things here.  I should note that there were several additional shirts that are even more entertaining in real life but didn't photograph well, so you're stuck with these.

I also just remembered that somewhere in one of the boxes, I have not one but two black-and-white striped tops.  Shut up.

I stopped cross stitching for quite a while because all I could ever find were patterns that were far too cutesy for my tastes.  Then I came across Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, who is doing one of the most gorgeous tarot decks I've ever seen.  And a lot of her designs have been turned into charts by Heaven and Earth Designs, and they had completed versions of the charts on their website, and they are BEAUTIFUL.

So I bought a couple and started working on the Cat Celtic Knot.  The pattern is 16 pages of letter-size paper, and I'm doing it on 28-ct linenweave--I had to buy a magnifier to see the holes in the fabric.  I haven't really worked on it this summer because there have been so many other things to do, but I'm going to have to get back into it once it's cold outside--otherwise it's going to take years to finish.  Literally.  I showed it to my friend E's mother and said that I had been thinking of giving it to my own mother as a present, and she interrupted me to say, "As much work as that's going to take, I wouldn't be giving it to ANYONE."

At any rate, I tried out the scanner function on the printer for the first time to capture the progress so far...

It's going to look great when it's done, but at this rate I'll be retired before finishing it.