Leader-Ender Trouble

Well, I've got trouble in the studio. Trouble with an upper case T, to coin a phrase. It all started with my making the list of five projects to finish by the end of July. Silly me, why did I do that? Could I not have quietly worked on one WISP at a time until five were finished? Without making a list? Playing favorites, in a manner of speaking?

With two of my finishes now history, it was time to deal with the Dreaded Dull Jacob's Ladder.

Laid him out, rearranged him, consulted with DH who rearranged further and we decided he was as good as he was going to get. Got to work on making rows with the Jewel Box as a leader-ender.

All went well for approximately three minutes. Then those Log Cabins got restless and started squirming and wanted some attention.

So I slipped a couple of them in as a leader-ender-to-the-second-degree kind of thing.

Not my smartest move, it turns out. Jewel Box would have none of that. She started pushing and shoving Jacob demanding to be finished first, to not remain a leader-ender, now that Cabins had shown up to fill that role. I tried to explain my plan, but she wasn't buying it.

Dumb, dull Jacob didn't seem to care, hanging there quietly on the wall, so I relented, and moved forward with Jewel Box. Jacob then all at once starting to look very sad and rejected, sticking his lip out, and the Cabins got noisier and noisier. It was like I was running a first grade for recalcitrants and clearly I had lost control of my class. I knew I wasn't cut out to be a teacher.

When the heck was recess, anyway?

The Cabins got ever more insistent, claiming that they didn't want to be a leader-ender project: they wanted to be real. I swear, I felt like I was talking to the Velveteen Rabbit, if you get my drift. So I went back and forth with Jewel Box and the Cabins (hoping no one would raise a hand and request to leave the room), with just one row of Jacob getting together during all of this mayhem, and finally Jewel Box was assembled and looking good. She says she wants a border so she's special, since the first leader-ender Jewel Box did not have one. I don't know whether to indulge her with this or not. Opinions welcome.

The chaos finally got to me. I left Jacob sulking on the wall, now claiming that he'd be a lot more interesting if he had a better name, and the Cabins tussling in a pile and came upstairs. The family has left for the parade and I have picnic preparation to do.

Wonder what kind of goings-on I'll meet up with when I return to the studio.