Last Saturday, when I was in Rugby anyway for my Certificate class, I killed two birds with one stone and picked up my new glasses. Not the everyday ones, I got those a few weeks ago – these are bi-focals. When stitching in the evening (my usual time for non-Certificate stitching) my usual stitching glasses have a disadvantage: I can see my embroidery, but very little else. Which means that when I look up to say something to my husband, or to watch something on the telly, both husband and telly are so blurred I might as well not look up. This is not very sociable.

Cue bi-focals – one bit for stitching, one bit for being sociable. I looked into getting extra-wide inserts (the bit for embroidery) but they turned out to be so eye-wateringly expensive that I went for the standard width. The lady at the optician’s very helpfully drew an outline of the inserts on the plain lenses in the frame I’d chosen, so I could see where they were in relation to my eyes, and I felt that would very likely work. Well, it does – they do! They take some getting used to (you have to learn to ignore the blurry line between to two bits of lens) and they need a little tweaking still (one lens needs to be higher, so a bit of frame-bending is required), but otherwise they are a great success.

In the picture you see them with a project I’ve just started, which is a Melbury Hill kit. After all those rainbows I wanted something less (excuse the pun) focused, with no need for taking notes, writing instructions or keeping track of how much thread I use. Just plain, straightforward stitching. As I’m working this upside down (I think it looks much better that way) interpreting the instructions involves a little mental gymnastics, but not too much. Even so, I found myself very carefully measuring the placement of stitches on the strawberry’s laid work (remember the Dutch “geometry triangle” I used for the battlement couching in my RSN Jacobean piece?); however, as soon as I realised what I was doing I chucked the triangle and went for a more rustic approach with slightly irregular pips; relax, woman !