embroidery and history

It took most of last night, but I finally got the mistake in my embroidery fixed. The way this pattern is set up, you're supposed to put in the outside border first, which is fine, except that it's 212 x 222 stitches, and I can't count the individual stitches without losing my place in the middle somewhere. So I put in the bare necessities of the top and one side, in order to get the height and width without counting all those stitches. It was a lovely idea, except I ended up making the height one stitch too short. At least it was easy to find where I had screwed up, and then all I had to do was tear out the bottom outside border, move it down one stitch, put it back in, and tear out and move down the corners of the bottom inside border, which I'd done so I knew where the inside border was supposed to go when I got to it.

Anyway, while I was doing that, I had the History Channel on for background noise, and listened to the last half of something about the Black Plague. Interesting stuff. Not the best way to keep people from panicking about the bird flu, though. The last bit was about how modern travel methods have made it possible for a disease to get practically anywhere in the world in 24 hours.

i wonder what would have happened if the Renaissance-era explorers had been anything other than Catholics? I don't think they did Central and South America any favors. Who would it have been, if not the Catholics, though?