Happy Autumn!

The calendar says it's officially autumn. As I mentioned in my previous post, some of the trees are starting to change color, but the surest sign is the State Fair of Virginia starts next week! I love going to the fair. For a rural state it really is we just have some very heavily populated areas but they don't make up the majority of the land area of the state it doesn't have a lot of animals and I'm usually dismayed at the small number of handcrafted items entered and always say I'm going to enter "next year" BUT I thoroughly enjoy the day, just walking around with the in-laws, eating bad-for-me food I mean really? Fried Butter?!?! and looking at the exhibits and booths.  Opening weekend conflicts with our annual trip to the Neptune Festival in Virginia Beach, so will most likely go the following Friday. Two fairs/festivals on consecutive weekends?  I think that deserves a Squeeeeeeeeee!

Thanks for the comments on my previous posts. I really do wish I could meet all of you in person, but this is a fair second.  I also wish I could truly capture the colors I wonder why American English dropped the "u"? in "Hawaiian Garden", they are amazingly vibrant! Mouse, I know what you mean on the cost of Chatelaines. Before the Hubs who knew he would be so darned expensive? I was able to kit most of my mandalas with all the silks and overdyes, but the majority of mine are stitched using Martina's DMC conversion.  Hawaiian  is an exception to the DMC. As it's a vacation memory piece, I splurged on the silks.  Unless mine is displayed next to one done in the called for silks and overdyes, nobody is going to know that it is "different".  The patterns can be expensive, but I figure for all the enjoyment I get out of them that the per use cost is very low and they are unique pieces. 

Stitching, you ask? Yes there was some this week.

Birds of a Feather proved to be more "Frogs of a Feather". I was one row off on the leaves, so had to pull them all out and redo. Despite that there was progress as the alphabet is now finished.

I may actually finish this before the end of the year! I have been thinking of how I want to do the tree trunk. My WDW "Bark" is very variegated and I don't really want a striped tree. I am down to two options. The first is stitch the trunk using continental rather then English method. The second is to flip one ply of thread over so that the colors don't line up and stitch as usual.

And of course Hawaiian

Photo is dark, but you can see the progress.

Carol released part 5 of her mystery sampler yesterday so I will be focusing on finishing it today. I'm starting to worry that I'm going to run out of thread, but will worry about that when I have to and try to not ruin the fun I'm having stitching this piece.