A late TUSAL, Secret Garden, and Gifted Gorgeousness

It's  time!  TUSAL is hosted by Daffycat  and gives us something to do with all those little ends you cut off.  Instead of throwing them away (or picking off your clothes or cats), collect them in a pretty jar and participate in TUSAL!!

Here is my March offering:

It looks like some tamping is in order soon, that or a slight redistribution.

This month, the jar is sitting in front of Chatelaine's Secret Victorian Garden which saw more beading this week.  I am moving along at a fair clip, so should have it done in a couple of weeks - although the center is much more heavily beaded than the area I am working on right now - so I am probably being a bit optimistic with that thought.  Here's a shot of the gates, corner and path under the conservatories.

and here is a closer picture of the corner.  The picture should be clickable to enlarge a bit.

While I am late with TUSAL, I am early with my  post.  Jo at Serendipitous Stitching came up with the idea and gives us all a way to say "thank you" to everyone that has gifted us with something for our stitching.  I worked on three projects, all Heaven and Earth Design pieces that fit this SAL.

The pattern for Shakespearean Fantasy was gifted to me by Pull the Other Thread.  I filled in more green this week and found a number of stitches that I missed during my first pass through the area.  I think I will go to a stitch by column method rather than cross country to avoid missing any more.  When I put it away Friday night, it was here:

My second gifted piece is It's About Time.  Kate at Needle and Haystacks gifted me the pattern.  It has been a very different experience from Shakespearean Fantasy as there is design as soon as you start stitching.

The photo is rather washed out but you can still see the wheels, hands and designs.

My last piece, Christmas Presence, is a shoehorn in that it was a freebie from the company and therefore, in my opinion, a gift.  I worked on this one a bit longer than normal on Friday, but I was so close to a column finish that I didn't want to stop.

Not many columns left before page 2 is finished.  Page 4 is much smaller and has fair amount already done, so I am not too far from a finish.

Beading and stitching

Another productive stitching week.  I am very pleased with how my stitching plan has kept me motivated and I do hope it continues.  I believe a large part of the success is that I am constantly changing projects so it feels like a new start every day.

Thursday evenings are for Its About Time.  I put in another 300 stitches this week.

Friday evenings are for Shakespearean Fantasy - if it happens to be my compressed Friday Christmas Presence is on the frame in the morning and afternoon, but it was a regular Friday this week, so just the Fantasy:

More greens this week.  I have gone back to using my Fire for this section of the stitching.  The search and highlight function on ezPDF Reader makes it very easy to find and fill in the missing stitches.  I will be very happy to get those sections completed so I can go to the block/column stitching that I am using on Time as it is much faster for me.

The weekend is for my focus piece, currently Secret Victorian Garden.  Beading has been the order of business on this one.  Here's a little bit:

I do turn my beads to follow the direction of the design, so corners take a little bit of thinking and some beads end up on an angle.

And here is some more:

Picture should be clickable so you can see the beading

I had to do some fiddling with the area under the conservatory as I am using a hand-dyed 32-count fabric so solid beading doesn't quite fit. I think I left out two beads and if you look very closely you can see that some beads don't quite line up with the X.  Fortunately, the man on the trotting horse can't tell, so I am good with it.

Sunday mornings are for The Sampler Life SAL block.  February's block is from Susanne Schmidt Farbenfroh.

I am enjoying this one and stitching in a spiral.