STEMS AND LEAVES AND LEAVES AND STEMS

1. The only way to make it through a complicated section is to breathe, clear your mind of all doubt, and go for it.  

(And make sure to have vats and vats of a soothing beverage on hand.  Wine...tequilla...dietCoke....whatever floats your particular boat.)

2. Random means random.  It doesn't mean that you should spend eighteen hours charting and graphing to come up with the perfect mathematical configuration.

(This is where the tequilla comes in particularly handy...especially for those of us inclined to be a little on the retentive/OCD side of things.)

3. When you've stitched something and think you've screwed it up and are getting ready to rip it out, put down the scissors, walk away for a minute, and then step back about four feet and look at the piece from a distance.  

(This is really true when it comes to leaves and stems.  How many leaves and stems in nature are perfectly perfect and evenly stitched and completely balanced when viewed under a magnifier?  None, I tell ya.  None!)

4.  If tou take two strands of DMC Memory Thread and twist them together, the end result is lovely and will now enable you to find a use for the crate of it that you bought when it first came out, but that has been languishing up in your studio because you had no clue how to play with it.

Another seven or eight episodes of The Good Wife last night resulted in the completion of the stems and leaves. (At least the ones above the bird, that is.  The ones next to the nest are...next!)