Panda Progress and Mystery Ornament

Well, I'm over halfway done on this large black area on the panda - the largest in the piece. These pictures were taken yesterday evening and I've made a bit more progress on the panda since. I'll definitely have this large area done in a week. And the Mystery Ornament - I have six more cross stitches and then the specialty stitches and it's done. Since it's one of two ornaments I have to put in the mail by the 20th, I've been taking it with me to work on while I wait for my children to get done with various things. LOTS of progress since last week because of that. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about how much time I spend waiting for my kids. I haven't even started the other ornament yet - it will probably be the Chatelaine freebie Christmas mandala on her website. I'll do the same kind of thing with it. If that doesn't get finished, I have the pulled thread ornament I finished last month to send instead. It's at an exhibition at Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm right now; my local face to face chapter of the EGA, Pocono Mountain Stitchers, holds one there every other year. They thought it was good to have projects of every size and type to encourage people to stitch. The exhibition's not judged except by those who walk through and cast ballots for their favorite piece. I don't expect to get that!

Florentine Ribbon

Well, the bargello is slightly bogged down like everything else. Since this picture was taken, I've completed both the stripes in progress. The goal for this week is to get that big ribbon done and get back to the fast stuff. I have only two and a half more weeks until Seminar to get it done. At least I don't have any prework for my courses.

Medieval Town Mandala and Midimystery Again

I got all the Rhodes stitches done at the top of the arches of the Midi Mystery - now to finish backstitching the central ornament and them before I can start on the lower Rhodes stitches. Of course, it being the first, I fell further behind on the thing because Martina released part 4 today. Maybe I can get part 1 done and get to part 2 before the end of October. On the Mandala, I ended up getting more of the Treasure Braid border done and will definitely finish it by the end of the week. I feel like I haven't made much progress at all!

Mystery Ornament and Panda

So I've made some progress on these two - this week was a slow week; probably because I had to do a lot of extra stuff like take my daughter to the dentist (She's going to need "quality time with the oral surgeon" to deal with her wisdom teeth. She's thrilled.) and all the extra things my husband normally does, since he wasn't here until late Thursday night. He's here until Wednesday afternoon and then again flies out. At least it means lots of frequent flier miles. The large black area is about halfway done on the panda and I think I'm going to start doing two colors per round on the ornament instead of one, since there are so few stitches per ornament.

Goldwork Outlined on Silk

I managed to get all the running stitch outline on the silk. I got a really good deal on it from Plumridge Silks. They have a closeout duiponi package for about $50 that gives you 8 or more yards of silk. It's fabric ends and can be as much as two yard pieces. Excellent stuff. Anyway, the picture my husband took tonight is before I got the paper off. I can't wait to start the next step, even though I have no idea what to do. Probably practice on the sampler they are having me do at the same time. Anyway, it's really visible progress!

Midi Mystery - Rhodes Started

Finally done with all the cross stitch on part one! It's only taken me three months to get it done, nearly. The Rhodes stitches should go quicker. Although a lot of people are using three strands of silk for this, I'm sticking with two. I don't like my stitches sticking out so far from the fabric. It's going more quickly now. I think the repetition and so much Treasure Braid was making me go slower earlier. I hope to have all the top part done this week, and maybe to start the bottom special stitches. The picture was taken two days ago - I have the stitches on the left outlined now and the Rhodes stitches in the middle are done.

Medieval Town Mandala - Butterflies Done!

Yay! I got all eight butterflies done! Now I'm stitching the square in Treasure Braid before filling in the corner motifs. This is turning out a LOT sparklier than the picture looked originally. Maybe at one point I'll be able to stitch large amounts of Treasure Braid without getting it twisted. That's my major gripe with all metallics, though - that and the difficulty of keeping them properly even while stitching. This piece is giving me practice with it, though.