More or less flexible

Three times I stitched this word. 

Twice I picked it all out. That's a full twelve strands. Six doubled. I found a lovely tapestry needle with a hole big enough to carry it all without fraying or snagging and a point sharp enough to make way for it all through the two layers of linen. Slow, steady and focused for each stitch. You can see where my mind might have wandered. 

I forgive me. 

Not going to wrap the rope this time. I like the way this allows the color shifts and shine to come through without any interference.

I'm going to take this one very slow. Not for the sake of precision - I've already tossed that out the window. For all my fussing over the original drawing, the transfer paper was an abject failure. It took me hours to do, but after very little handling, the ghost letters were gone. 

I was pissed about it at first. Even took a run at trying again with just this first line of text. Another failure and a big flag calling for attention.

 Let this one unfold more organically than the first one. As a spell should. 

I'm in the good place for the first time this year. Later than usual because I didn't force myself to suffer the cold water. There was a good bit of scrubbing and inspection to be done before I could board the floatie and just chill.

And once I did, I was ready.

While looking for the shape of The Monkeytown Murders I wandered off into details about the main character's parents. What a crew.