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Monday 23 March 2015

IHSW in the Future

IHSW is hosted by Joysze of Random Ramblings

I always sign up for Numb Bum Weekend but usually forget to do the post on the Monday!  Anyway, this weekend I was working both days so I added in Friday as well to get a decent amount of stitching done.  I focused on Elizabeth Shephard, a Scarlet Letter reproduction.  Here is where she started the weekend:


And here she is now:

Stitched on 30 count linen using AVAS silks

The brown flower in the top right was just so addictive, I stitched all of that motif on Friday and then half the bird motif on the other two days.  It's interesting that as you stitch you can see where the original would have been joined up but Marsha has charted it as it looks now complete with the worn away gaps where threads would have been.  This is particularly noticeable in the stems, vines and leaves.

The Scarlet Letter Year Group are planning a Summer Outing this year to the Manor House of Micheal and Elizabeth Feller in the Cotswolds.  If anyone would care to join us, please let me know.  There are two trips planned, one on 26th August and one in July (date to be advised).  The house will be open throughout the summer if you want to visit with your own group too.

Becca from Finding Flapjack has come up with a great idea for blogging prompts.  Here is the current one:

One hundred years ago, authors and other storytellers thought we'd have flying cars and apartments on Mars by now.  How do you think the world will look 100 years from now?  How long might it take for the future to really look like "the future" and why?

I read a lot of Science Fiction and in many ways we are living in the Future they predicted.  Although we don't have the flying cars yet we are looking at driverless cars now.  If you have read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy you will recognise the guide itself as an e-Reader.  How many of you are reading this on an e-Reader or iPad?  We have voice-activated computers, touchscreen computers and even eye-gaze computers for tetraplegic people.  Remember the communicators in Captain Kirk's Star Trek?  I specifically bought a clam-shell mobile phone so I could snap it shut and say "Kirk out" at the end of conversations!  Only in my head obviously!

So what will the future hold?  Manned missions to Mars are being planned so we may have a small colony there.  Technology will continue to make huge advances, especially in the medical fields.  There is so much they can do to help people (with the money to pay) now it would be good to see it spread to helping everyone.  Bill Gates' vaccination program is an example of a wealthy person using their money for the greater good.  I'd also like to see more tolerance for people; we have slowly been moving towards greater acceptance of anyone who is not a healthy white heterosexual man but with the rise of the far right political parties this is being eroded far too rapidly.

Maybe we will go backwards and become more interested in the handmade and bespoke?  After all, look at the rise of "shabby chic" and DIY.  I am sure cross stitch will still be as popular in 100 years as it is now.  Maybe some of my younger followers will still be alive and blogging about it all!

One of the issues with technology is how quickly it becomes obsolete.  Who has a cupboard full of VHS tapes at home?  Who has a loft full of vinyl?  Who has lost their early blog posts because that platform is no longer supported?  What about all those downloaded photos and charts?  Do you diligently back them up and load them onto your new PC every time you change it?  Hope you're not still using floppy disks for that purpose?

One thing which won't change is that children will pick it all up much more quickly than adults will!  I look at the way my son who cannot even read can find his way around the internet to find his favourite clips and games.  He managed to flip the PC screen display 90 degrees the other day and was then trying to turn the monitor screen so he could see it properly!  I had to Google to find out how to switch it back (Ctrl, Alt and a directional arrow in case you have a child who does this sort of thing too).

Finally, Jocondine has published the answer to the first clue in her Journey Around France.  She will be putting up the next clue on Wednesday so if you enjoy a puzzle with a needlework theme, do pop over and test your brain.  The clues really are very well thought out and very educational too! 

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a fabulous read first thing on a Monday morning! Your words ring so true, but I have to say that for those people trying to spread hate and intolerance...well, that too shall pass. We good ones will just wait it out like we always do :D I hope you received my email about my recent updated info...things change and this one is proof of it!

Dani - tkdchick said...

You made wonderful progress!

Katie said...

Fantastic progress!

Shannon Meyer said...

Your stitching project is really coming along, it looks great!!

Vickie said...

Smokin 'needles!
Very interesting reading today Jo.

Bea said...

For not much time, you made excellent progress. I'm loving this design - that little bit of red adds a nice bit of colour.

EvalinaMaria said...

Great progress!
Evalina, This and that...

jocondine said...

Never stitched Quaker but your pic are very tempting, seems to give a lot of fun to do. About my cupboard full of VHS, I was thinking of knitting them (may be to make a kind of chain mail medieval knight as a carnival costume (I'm looking for an idea for my slides). My vinyls are already reserved by DD2 as cult singles (madness, buggles, abba, kraftwerk... ;) and you make me remember DD3 saying "click and vroum" on the car game icon on the computer screen before saying papa or maman.... I hope that all this free time won by technology will be use for human relations. xxx

Annette-California said...

Beautiful stitching! love Annette

Gillie said...

Well done, Jo, you are really moving along! Yup, reading and commenting on my iPad, it's never far from me when I am home......in an evacuation, if the WT was safe, this would be the next thing I would grab......oh and my glasses if it was night time! The other bit of tech that I love....FaceTime .......a friend and I in Yorkshire chat once a week, almost but quite as good as being with her!

Stitching Noni said...

Great post Jo.
I love science fiction and I am often amazed by what was in a book many years ago so often ends up in some shape or form in our lives today...
Great progress on your sampler :)
Hugs xx

Linda said...

Awesome progress Jo.

Linda

Lady Stitch-a-Lot said...

I also love to read sience fiction now and then. I really love Ray Bradburys work (like Fahrenheit 451 and so on) and I read a couple of his early works. I think it is in Fahrenheit, where he describes a woman having a button in her ear listening to the radio and there are actual television-walls. When I read that book various years ago I was like "We have that technology already and that book is just some 50 years old!". So I am unsure about how to imagine the future now ;-)
But I can imagine people crafting, these days it feels a bit like more people are getting interested (maybe also thanks to the internet, I am trying to convert one of my girls here into stitching, so I am not "alone" anymore. And I would have never become aware of all the possibilities in stitching). At least it would be nice if people would still craft in a hundred years ;-)

Brigitte said...

I second every word you said about tolerance in your post. That's a goal so many people seem to be light-years away from today. So sad. Hopefully this will change in the future.

Great progress you made on your Quaker sampler. The medallion with the little birdie will be so beautiful when finished.

Leonore Winterer said...

Great progress! I think a piece like that, with 'mistakes' being charted on purpose, would drive me crazy over time, though I admire the dedication to historical accuracy.

Thinking about how the future will look like in 100 years...well, one can only go wrong by trying to predict something like that, but it's still fun to try! I don't think technical advance will continue at the speed we have know...some areas of science seem to have reached a limit, and are going much slower now. On the other hand, once we learn how to overcome those limits, there might as well be a huge leap forward! Other areas, like medicine, just continue to amaze me with every new article I read...I can hardly begin to imagine how the world, humanity and even humans themselves will look by then!

Kaisievic said...

Great post, Jo, very thought provoking (lovely stitching, too.)

findingflapjack said...

Sounds like we had similar thoughts again! I think some of the 'old-fashioned' things will come back too- vinyl is becoming popular again (although I think the time has passed for the VHS!) Even in 10 years time I'm sure a lot of things will be very different!

rosey175 said...

Ugh shabby chic. I have strong feelings on taking a beautiful antique, painting it in some chalk-colored paint and then scrubbing at the edges to make it look aged again. Just no.

I hope we continue moving to being more acceptable although I think the news would rather us think otherwise.

Julie said...

You've made lots of progress for IHSW.

Sarah in Stitches said...

Excellent answer! Love these posts. Beautiful stitching, too! Great progress :D