SAL Saturday Progress

We actually had a warm sunny day on Saturday so I took advantage of it and worked outside on my yard all day. I mowed the lawn, dug up 4 large clumps of day lilies, separated them and planted a new day lily bed on the side of the house where the grass was struggling to grow. It looks much better although I need to get some edging for the beds. In place of the day lilies, I planted hostas which will be much happier in the shade than the day lilies were. It was a huge project but the front garden looks much nicer.



As a result of all the time spent on yard work, my stitching progress was not as much as I hoped but satisfactory none the less. I think I will be able to finish this panel this coming weekend, especially since Friday is considered a holiday and I will have the day off because 4th of July falls on Saturday. Since the biggest part of my yard work is done, I'm looking forward to some serious stitching time. I hope you get some to and thanks for stopping by!

Still No Sunshine

I tell ya, this weather is making people cranky, myself included. We had the tiniest bit of sun for about 4 minutes yesterday morning and then it was back to rain and clouds and crap weather. I believe we've had 22 out of 24 days with rain this month - it's pitiful. I had hoped to photograph this piece in sunshine but seeing that's not likely for a while, I went ahead and took a picture today.


Anyway, the weather did mean I stayed indoors and finished this piece on Sunday. I just need to add the little heart button over near the words and then it will be ready to finish. I'm waffling between framing it and making it a stand up. It's for my sister so I think I will have it framed as she covets my heart wall every time she sees it.

Picking up the threads again

It's been quite a while since I have been able to put needle to thread but I've finally completed my first year of grad school and have two luxurious months of no classes. I know they will go fast and I have tons of projects I would like to accomplish during the next two months but I will be happy if I finish a few stitching projects. I actually finished one of my rotation pieces yesterday so I'm off to a good start I think.

I also managed to put some serious time into my Alexandre SAL piece and I'd be thrilled to finish at least the main part of this project before classes start again in September. Here's the third panel of four. I am still enjoying working on this piece very much but I will be glad to move on to something different once it's done.

I've been looking at all the lovely projects everyone is working on and it makes me so tempted to start something new. Since I finished my Friday rotation piece, I just might do that this week! Or I might move this SAL piece to Fridays as well as Saturdays to try and get it done.

Update

I made a little bit of progress on my stitching rotation last week and here are a few photos of what I worked on. This is the Peace Ornament from the 2008 JCS ornament issue. I switched to the border for a bit because I was so bored with stitching all that white of the dove. I didn't get to work on this yesterday so I won't have progress to show until next week. Sorry the photo is so lousy but this is a hard piece to get a good picture of. Plus we've had very little sunshine over the last week so there's not much hope of getting a better view.

Next up is my CHS piece. I love working on this piece even though I'm stitching slowly. I hope to make more progress on it this evening if I can keep my eyes open. I love the colors in the piece.

And finally I made a fair amount of progress on the HIH heart I'm stitching for my sister. I love their little kits as they stitch up so quickly. I will definitely finish this and get it framed before their anniversary at the end of August.

I did a tiny bit of stitching on my SAL Alexandre and Halloween Fairy pieces over the weekend but not enough to be really worth a photo and post. I should have more to show this weekend. I hope you're week is going as fast as mine is!

Thanks for all of your tips!

As a result of all your wonderful tips and advice for working with the dreaded Kreinik thread, I buckled down and worked on getting some of the stitching out of the way on Sunday. It was a perfect day for stitching as the weather was cold and rainy so I had a great excuse for staying in doors. And I'm really happy with the progress I made!

I ended up going with one thread only and very short lengths. It was kind of a pain to have to rethread the needle so often but it was worth it. I was also careful to keep dropping my needle every few stitches to let the thread unwind so it didn't crimp up a lot and that really seemed to work well.

Thanks to all your great advice, I no longer dread having to work with metallic threads. Thank you everyone!

Busy Week = Not A Lot of Progress

Between a very stressful week at work and lots of reading for my current class, I did not make a lot of progress this week. I did manage a few stitches in my Peace ornament and The Gilded Cage.

I also cast on for the 2nd sock in the pair I'm knitting for a friend and yesterday I managed to finish the 2nd panel of my Alexandre piece but I did not try to start the third panel. Instead I picked up the sock and knit a bit on that.



Today I'm going to work a little on my Halloween Fairy - it's rainy and damp and my homework is done so I'm looking forward to making some stitching progress today. Hope your weather is fair where ever you are!

So close....

Yesterday was my day to work on my Alexandre piece and I came quite close to finishing it. I almost pushed on and completed the rest of the border but I was really tired and afraid I'd make a mistake so I stopped where I was. I should definitely finish this up next Saturday.