Standing nutcracker, 16

During the 2010 winter olympics I became addicted to the sport of curling.  Now you understand that I live in Florida year-round and I have always had ice-cold feet, so one might wonder why I enjoy watching a sport where people walk around on ice in shoes, not boots or mukluks.  It's like watching a pool game with angles and strategy.  Well, today was the first day in forever that there were curling matches on television.

Hooray!  Except that the women's match was at 10am and I had to leave for my opera at 11:40.  I didn't tape the end of the match because the men were playing at 4pm and I planned to be home about 4:30 to watch it and I knew the announcers would tell me who won the women's match before I would have time to watch the end.  Which they did.  However, my husband watched the end, except it wasn't the end because it ran over and they left the match to go to a college basketball game.  Obviously there isn't a curling lobby in the US, though the announcers did mention that membership in curling clubs was up 45% in the past 10 years.  I guess that means from nothing to next to nothing.  Anyway, I'll be there.  And I'm so interested that I barely get any stitching done while I'm watching.  

Today's opera was Rigoletto.  There's been much debating about this production.  The purists are incensed that the director (from Broadway of all places) decided that Las Vegas in the 1960s with Sinatra and his Rat Pack would be an appropriate setting rather than the 1600s in Italy.  Many people turned in their tickets.  I think it worked.  Of course, the voices were superb and the acting was also wonderful and the sets really conveyed the essence of the story.  I enjoyed it.  Can't wait to hear the second guessers now.

Gunther seems to be treading water.  It's the season and some evenings I am worn out and take a nap before cooking dinner (my mother's family is known for "power" naps) so no stitching is accomplished.  And I was so determined to move Gunther on the stretcher bars that I have him just a tad too high.  My criss-cross Hungarian may not get its French knot or whatever in the open stitch until he's back off the stretcher bars.

I've taken this photograph so you can see how I have basted the canvas with my completed section of Gunther.  This is so much more convenient than having all that canvas flapping and also prevents wear-and-tear on the stitching.

I have finished Gunther's green sash and given him a lustrous blue gem.  I've completed the front of his red tunic (save about 6 stitches on the right), and will do the same interlocking gobelin for the dark red that is the inside lining of the tunic's tail.  And I'm proud to say I have accomplished quite a bit of the background on both sides. 

This next week I'm ready to start on his trousers using the stitch Anne Stradal suggested, the Kalem.  Thank you, Anne.