At My Own Pace

I’ve been working on my various projects these past 2 weeks, just going along at my own pace. I haven’t felt like I’ve made a lot of progress so I haven’t been posting. But it’s been a while so I thought I should share anyway. Here’s where everything stands:

My small for this month will be Token of Love from Samplers Not Forgotten. I caught a potentially devastating counting error. If I had not, I probably would have trashed it, it was that bad. It would have meant restitching the entire white /red floral part. I stitched in one extra of those red diagonal squares in the middle, and then began to stitch in the floral area based on that. If I had not caught the error, my 2 floral sections coming up from the bottom and down from the top would have been off by 2 stitches in each direction. It would have been a disaster. But I did catch it, pulled out the error, and am ready to go on my merry way with it! I just need time!

Catherine Agnes by Indigo Rose. I did the first little reticello corner. My wrapping thread is too thick and you can’t see the dove’s eyes. The thread called for is between an 8 and 12 perle cotton (It is Caron Wildflowers). But I am stitching on 35 ct instead of 32 count. It turns out that makes a big difference on this part! I need much closer to the 12 or even smaller. I’m going to redo it but I will have to decide with what. Also, my eyelets motif doesn’t make eyelets due to the higher fabric count. This is not so bad but maybe I should redo that too. (It is the blue double diamond shape in the centered above the middle motif.) Or not, it doesn’t bother me too much.

I also have a little miscount and now I am trying to decide if it’s worth it to take out the side alphabet to shift it down one thread. I don’t think it’s worth it, but won’t know for sure until I see if it runs into the corner border in the upper right. I’ll stitch that part next and see what it looks like before I decide.

I put in a few more flowers in my First Garden. This one I feel like would be easier if I had a stand or a frame. I will think about remounting it in my hoop stand. It sure is pretty and I’m enjoying the different stitches and the freedom of this style.

And I have now finished 3 of the 4 inner wings panels on my butterfly. I looked up the next steps in the directions. I think I’ll go to the next steps on these before doing the satin stitches on the outer panels so I can have some variety in this project. The next steps are the couched silver threads that outline the colors, the felt needle panels, and the outlines of the whole wing which is just easy backstitch.

This actually feels like quite a bit of progress so I’m glad I made up a post about what I’ve been doing!