Taking Shape

The lower edge of the current stitching is the lower edge of the top half. It's coming along pretty well. At the rate I'm going with the crewel, this will be my daily project by next week. Only three colors on this so far, and whole stitches only. Worst thing to watch out for is miscounting. The yellow braid is looking good on the green.

Started, Frogged, Started Again

I'd worked on this earlier in the week and picked it up again yesterday. When I worked a little bit farther, I found out I was off center by one square, so I had to frog the whooooole thing. I'm back now, after the frogging, to just a bit more stitching on it than when I started yesterday. At least it's right now, and I've learned never to trust the square on top of the one I'm stitching for centering. The stitching, as you can see from the mini-saga, goes quickly on this. There are very few color changes. I'll have it done by the end of the month, even just in regular rotation. At least, close to done.

A Touch of Pink

Progress is still very visible on this, and I added a bunch of small pink flower petals into the garden. The light blue background is beginning to fill in the area. Barring the specialty stitches, the top arm of the second garden is almost done.

Two New in the Rotation

I added two more things to my rotation this week. One is something that was in before the Christmas blitz - Tiramisu. The other is yet another calendar round robin. Both of these pictures were taken before I did any new work on them. The calendar round robin should go more quickly than the last couple of them, and Tiramisu is going to take quite a while longer, but I think it'll be worth the effort. Since these pictures last Friday, both have been worked on. A good start, I think.

Striping in Blue

I added more blue this week and finished the upward edge of the darkest blue of that side. The next darkest blue made some progress, too. This is probably the most enjoyable piece, to me, that I'm currently working on. It makes me smile every time.

Arching Up

I finished the inner arch of the right side now. All I have to do is fill in the flowers and the pots with the gold scrollwork and the third part's cross stitching will be done. It's coming along pretty quickly and I hope to have that done in a couple more weeks. Wishful thinking, probably.

Dazzle Done

I finished it yesterday and my husban took a picture last night. We're planning on making a box for it, one of poplar, possibly with a whitewash, and setting it in the top. Overall, I like how this came out. The Flair gave me some issues coming out of the holes and squeezing itself into a tube in a few places. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it to lay flat right out of those holes. I can tell where I didn't use the laying tool - which means I need to always use it on projects like this. I learned a lot about working with one. The project is designed by Margaret Bendig for the San Diego chapter of the American Needlepoint Guild. It counts as part of my project challenge because I bought it as a kit, and ergo was completely from the kit stash. This brings me to 22 of 25 done toward my challenge.