no power, but lots of extra embroidery

The power went off at 8:30 this morning. I patiently waited throughout the day, doing my drawn thread embroidery and getting a lot more done than I had expected to today, until it finally came back on seven hours later at 3:30pm.

Until now, we have been very fortunate not to have had many power outages/blackouts. We’ve previously only had about five, and the longest would have only been about an hour.

Thankfully today’s was during daylight hours, and if I had needed to start preparing dinner before the power came back on, the stove is gas, so we would have been ok.

Its just part of life in Addis – a part that we had been expecting too – though a part that I hadn’t really experienced much until today.

Because of the extra stitching time I was able to get to halfway around my tablecloth today, so the stitching is going well. I would like to have all the drawn-thread work complete by the time we go home. I have been doing a bit most days, so I think that is an entirely achievable goal.

The drawn-thread work is in a wide band near the edge of the cloth. I haven’t yet decided how I will hem it. Its a toss up between a hemstitched edge or a herringboned edging. Either are acceptable for this style of traditional embroidery.

And no, I’m not yet going to tell you what the style is. That cat is staying well inside the bag for some time yet!