A New Blackbird. The Parrot. Stitching Borders.

I started a new Blackbird. This is from the booklet “Deck The Halls” called First Day of Christmas. I haven’t gotten too far!

I now have soccer practice to attend twice a week and a border is a good thing to work on during that so I was able to finish up the green on the border of Mary Ellen Turner. I still need to do the berries, and will work on those at soccer practice next week. I started the parrot during my home stitching time over the weekend. It is coming along pretty quickly. I’m closing in on the finish!

Speaking of borders, I am changing my plans for Anna Millet. My new goal is to get the complete side and bottom borders finished and have Anna Millet’s name put in on this sampler this month. Doing the alphabets is quick and easy, especially once the borders are there. Here is my progress…

ALAS! When I went to work on the alphabet at the top I found a mistake and I think it is too late to fix it. It is not a really bad mistake. I put in one extra space here between the A and M:

And then after I resigned myself to that mistake and completed the side border, I found ANOTHER mistake! ARgh! That same letter A with the extra space was also shifted 1 to the right. Since I counted off of it, almost everything I stitched from then on is ALSO shifted.

The mistakes are firmly embedded. I would have to take out all the letters in the alphabets I’ve done so far to fix it, as well as the whole top border which is about 1/3 done. Checking how this impacts the rest of the sampler…the middle row of alphabet will be spaced with one extra stitch top to bottom, and the top 2 lines of alphabet will be scooched to the right by one. They will collide a little with the flower border. But now a crowded area on the left side of the sampler will be a bit relieved. The top leaf vine border will also be pushed up and over by 1. Well….it certainly could be a lot worse. No one will be able to tell. I will continue!