Discovery

I made a major discovery yesterday - I"m getting old! Of course, I knew that, but it was really confirmed yesterday. We had a wicked wind storm yesterday and the power was out for almost 5 hours. I was actually rather happy about it as it made the house *very* quiet and I figured I could get some quality stitching time in. Pulled up to my frame to work on Egyptian Garden and realized that despite the room being very bright with sun light, I still needed my OTT lamp to help me see!! I put one length of thread in and pulled out Shepherd's Bush's Santaberry Pudding. It's stitched on Heatherfield with perle cotton and is super easy on the eyes. A perfect no electricity project.

Here's where I left off in January:

And here's where I finished yesterday - right before the power came back on:

I've made one change from the pattern - the lettering is charted in blue but the cover model certainly wasn't stitched in blue so tossed a few other colors and the Hubs liked this one best. Hmmm, some of those letters look a little wonky, hopefully they'll straighten up a bit when I do the finish ironing.

I also did a band on Just Nan's Christmas Elegance but forgot to take a picture. I may have to do some frogging as I misread the chart and used the wrong color for the backstitching. It looks okay, but may be a bit too heavy. I'll make a final decision when I get a bit further along so I can see how it works with the rest of the piece.

Barring any power failures, I"ll be working on Egyptian Garden today and tomorrow, although I may switch over to another Shepherd's Bush Holy Night for a while.

Web surfing is the killer of all good intentions. I was zipping through Karen's (Wasatch Needlecrafts) Nashville update and saw three more projects that I couldn't live without. It does help that she's offering a 15% off on all Nashville releases right now, so soon I should be getting: Primitive Traditions' Sarah Elliott's Home Port, and Blackbird Designs' Wild Lilies and Gathering Baskets. I zipped over to Stitching Bits and Bobs to get the threads while they were still on sale and then to ABC Stitch to get the fabrics. I wish I could find one store that carried everything. I know In Stitches in Alexandria does, but by the time I drive up there (and deal with all that traffic around Woodbridge) I'm worn out. Besides this way I don't have to get out of my yoga pants and sweatshirt...