So, you hit the web looking for stuff on Morris Dancing or entoptic imagery and you found, instead, that Anderson's put up an embroidery pattern. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

We all have our foibles and this is what happens when you let an engineer loose on a long journey with a dead laptop battery. The owl is an age-old symbol for spirituality; these are inspired by images from the early Christian period in England. The first one was based on a brooch. Not strictly cross-stitch, because there's more backstitch in it, but easy enough to do. I then did another design, which I guess is not strictly hardanger and not strictly bargello, because there's not enough of it to be either. That one can be accompanied by a baby owl.

I'm kinda pleased with them and Sue likes the ones I did for her, anyway.

• The Cross Stitch Owl
• The Hardanger Owl

Oh yes, if you came here from the entoptic page, you'll be wondering what happened. Well, look at the designs in turn. If I hadn't said owl, would the cross-stitch design actually loo like one? And, if you weren't used to seeing owls, would the baby hardanger design look like one?

Someone suggested that they might look like a beard: that gave me an idea for using the eyes with a real beard.

• The Foliate Head

This is the easiest way I could find to explain "construal".