Bird Progress and A June Plan

I had a good weekend stitching Mary Amelia’s Bird. I went from here:

To here:

To here over 3 days.

Not too bad! It is going quicker than I thought. I do not love stitching the 2 strands of DMC on the 36 to get the coverage I would like. It looks ok but not as neat. If had been willing to spend $100 on making a silk conversion, I would enjoy that more, but I was unwilling! That’s ok. I will pretend it is an antique!

When I finished Jane, I went through my WIP baskets to decide which WIP I felt I could tackle and finish next. The winner is the Joyful World calendar! It has been disgracefully neglected when all that is left is the border and a couple tiny elements. Let’s get it done!! I have started working diligently on it during swim lessons and odd moments here and there. Here is about where it was last time I showed you:

From this point, first I finished the border vine. Now I’m working on the leaves and flowers. Here we are today. Can you see the progress?

I also decided what special stitches I wanted to put on April and May for the “grounds” (Rhodes and rice stitches). I will do those when I get tired of the leaves…each one gets done separately due to there being long stretches between colors. It is quite tedious. I’m trying not to cheat because I don’t want to run out of thread, the red especially! The newer dye lots are all so different from mine! I will let you know how it goes. Maybe I can finish this in June. That would be a huge triumph.