Wind Chill N Stitches

A description of the character of weather known as "coldness" was proposed about 1940 by scientists working in the Antarctic. The "wind chill index" was developed to describe the relative discomfort/danger resulting from the combination of wind and temperature.


Now every newscaster in the country uses 'wind chill' ad nauseam to tell us "It's Cold Outside".
I mean, at 7am today it was 3 degrees Fahrenheit. That's cold. I understand that I should 'dress appropriately when going outside' because it's 3 degrees out! I do not need to be told that in 'wind chill' the temp. is minus 12. You would think that knowing it was 3 degrees would be significant enough!

Now I'm going to go into the 'old folks mode' .. and tell you that when I was a child, we did not hear about wind chill (EVER!!!) on the morning radio or evening TV news. We'd hear it was .. BRISK today. Or it was QUITE COLD today. We'd know IF the word "brisk" was used, that it was very very cold outside! Plus, we could look outside and see the smoke from the stacks at the Paper Mill. If the smoke was going 'straight up' ... man, it WAS Brisk outside!!

We did NOT ride the bus to school because we lived within the city limits .. only those kids living in the 'country' got to ride buses, and they'd wait outside in the COLD for the bus to come. My friends and I had to walk to school .. well over a mile and a half away .. across the Cheboygan river on the bridge (where the winds off Lake Huron came a'blowin in - Lake Huron was only about 1/2 mile away) .. and we had 'dress codes' then so that meant we wore skirts and dresses with exposed legs (knees if it were really cold out .. no way would we put pants on under our dresses - how totally uncool would that be!!), and it would take about 2 hours for the 'redness' to disappear. We even had to do this in BRISK weather! No one thought twice about it .. heck, we'd even play outdoors when it was 'very cold' or even 'brisk' .. we'd be dressed to the gills of course, but we'd be outside playing!

grumble grumble

Now .. about the "stitches" part of this blog.
I'd stitched My Big Toe Designs' "Quaker Seasons" on the 40ct gauze .... and Debbie from My Big Toe called the other day and told me she had a COMPANION piece to that one coming out in February. And ... would I like her to send me this design 'in advance' so I could already have the shop model stitched up when the chart was released? Would I? Need to ask me? OF COURSE!
It's a Quaker motif sampler with a wonderful verse .. but instead of the gauze, I'll stitch this one the way Debbie indiciated, on 32ct Flax Linen using Weeks Dye Works.
It's driving me crazy .. I have all the materials pulled for it and am ready to stitch it .. but I've decided that THIS will be my Christmas Day project instead! We have no where to go but to sit at home, and I've got a ton of movies to watch, (and hoping for stocking treats to nibble on), and I'll have something new to do! I keep looking at it .. I wanna start it now .. but I can wait for Santa!