A hermitting kind of weekend

International Hermit and Stitch weekend fell on a perfect weekend for staying inside and stitching.  Rain with cooler temperatures were forecast, instead I woke up Saturday morning to ice.  We had freezing rain and sleet overnight and everything was coated in a layer of ice.  Put a pot of stew on the stove settled in for some much needed stitching - well in-between the laundry and other weekend chores.  More of the same on Sunday - less ice and chili in the slow cooker, but mostly stitching.

I worked on two pieces this weekend.  First up was New England St. Nick from The Goode Huswife.  I am stitching this one on 35-count Onyx from Weeks Dye Works with the recommended NPI threads.  Ohhh my aching eyes. It wasn't so much the black fabric or the small count as I got an amazing deal on a Mighty Bright magnifier at the after Thanksgiving sale at Jo-ann's I think it was something like 60% off, but it was the fact that the majority of my stitching was with a very dark brown and even with the light it was difficult to see.  I was so relieved when I finished up the outline and everything matched up.  That's an amazing feeling isn't it?  With the outline in place the filling should be easy famous last words if I've ever heard them...

I've got two pictures, you can see the outline better but the fabric color is all washed out.  The second one shows the fabric color perfectly but the outline is a bit harder to see.  Given my craptastic photography skills, I will probably never get a decent picture of this one.

The majority of my weekend was spent working on Japanese Octagonal Box by Chatelaine.  I started this one back when it was an on-line class in 2006 but life or something got in the way and I hadn't touched it in ages.  The pine cones are all done in queen stitch which is not my favorite stitch so that may be part of the reason I slowed down with it.  This is also the first piece that I was able to use my belt scroll frame attachment.  Instead of the scroll bars being on the top and bottom, they are on the left and right so you can keep an even tension on those long narrow pieces.  Here's a picture of the piece in the belt scroll before I started stitching:

Here's where I left off Sunday evening:


Japanese Octagonal Box by Chatelaine
Stitched on 32-count light blue Belfast with called for fibers and beads

There are small leaves on the bonsi in the bottom section, but they don't show up terribly well.

As with several other WIPs I have worked on so far this year, I keep wondering why I put this one down.