My Fairy Will be Getting Her Wings

. . . just not this year.

You see, when I picked up this blog posting idea to keep everyone up to date on the beauty of my Mirabilia fairy's wings, I thought this would be the perfect time to finish her.  While stitching with metallic thread is the bane of any stitcher's life, once I got the hang of stitching the outlines from dark to light, then mindlessly stitching the inside with white and metallic, why not set this as a goal for the year?  Why not end the year with a completed large piece of cross stitch?

Ah, the joy of finally having her finished and stitched, every single little stitch.  Every one.  I have weekends more or less free, and I have a magnifier I use when I stitch her with my contacts in.  Why not decide that now, finally, I can finish her and not hoard her as only a stitcher can?

Well, the answer is somewhat simple.  First there was the section of wing where I had to thread the needle 2-3 times each row.  Seriously.  And it was not the metallic that was giving the trouble - it was the white cotton thread.  Which is understandable if you think about how white is bleached and then bleached some more, it is perhaps a little less durable and a bit more persnickety.

So that's one excuse.  That was along about September, when these pictures were taken:

These are the outlines of the wings taken around the 4th of July.

This is the part that requires counting and caffeine; the filling-in part, 

not so much.

 

This is that same section filled in right after Labor Day weekend.  

I also extended the LH section up a little bit.

This wing is coming along nicely.

So yes, given all this progress from July to September, the future looked promising.  The fairly looked like she would become complete in a few months of dedicated work, Christmas knitting notwithstanding.

Then I took our lovely new cat, Penelope Lane to the vet for her annual shots.  A bit delayed, I admit, but underemployment will wreck havoc on one's income.  Here she is looking all regal and beautiful:

Penelope Lane surveys her kingdom

Wouldn't you know . . . I happened to mention to our vet as I had to a small circle of friends that we were ready to think about getting a kitten, one to replace our old cat, Cerridwen.  She had passed in July, and I'm very grateful we had another cat to help make our home not quite so empty of cat-ness.

And what did our very kind vet do when I mentioned this new openness in our hearts?

Why, she happened to mention a tiny kitten that they were fostering there, that's what she did! 

And she went even further by bringing said tiny, little, all-black kitten into the examining room and laying him in my hand.  Yes, he was that small.  He was found wandering along a busy street and some kind soul stopped his car (it was a guy), noticed that his leg seemed to be broken, and brought him into our vet because he worked in the area.  This tiny little kitten still had these great big stitches in his teeny tiny leg from the leg pin surgery.

He was so tiny!!!  And he just looked about him like he wasn't sure what the world was all about, and could someone help him, please??

I didn't adopt him there on the spot.  I did turn into a pile of mush there in front of the vet and her technician, and I asked if our names could be added to the list.  Our timing was such that our names were at the top.

So Webmaster Bill and I talked some more, talked to a few trusted friends, thought about some kittens who were comfortably ensconced in a barn and in no danger of busy streets, saw a couple more foster kittens, and then decided that this little stray black kitten was the one for us. 

The vet and her technician agreed.

Of course they would!

And so in mid-October we brought home our new little Peppercorn.  We thought of several names, including Odysseus (husband of Penelope), Othello (too tragic), and Orpheus, the musician who descended into the underworld to retrieve his beloved (also tragic, and hard to say his name).

It's been a while since we've had a kitten.  A long while.  Which says something about our cat-owning tendencies and also about our age.  Playful photos are below:

Lots and lots of kitten energy.  Lots.  And he loves to lie in my lap and chase after bright shiny things. So can you imagine the havoc he would wreck on the bright shiny dangly threads that create a fairy's wings??  Sure, I knew you could.  And so, I'm sure, could the vet.

All this to say, like the popular Irish folk song "Why Paddy Won't be at Work Today (it's the one about the fellow who goes to the job site, loads up the bucket to bring himself to the top, then unloads the bucket and he goes plummeting to the ground; MythBusters did a segment on it years ago), the subtitle of this posting might just very well be:  "Why Fairy Won't get her Wings this Year."  The bell signalling her wings is most certainly waiting till next year, till kitty time becomes cat time and no little black kitten will be tempted to play with bright, shiny threads.

Except there is nothing like a teeny little kitten to provide endless hours of fun and amusement for all concerned, and I'm enjoying every moment I have with a teeny tiny little black kitten: