*Crickets*

Whoops, where have I been? Another busy week at work, unfortunately, but I have been cross stitching. I finished up the G block on February 2nd. This one was fun, because the flowers under the goose actually required partial stitches, which are, of course, a bit tricky to do over-one! I attempted to split the threads on the ones under the right side of the goose with not as much success as I'd hoped, so I left off the partial stitches on the left side of the goose. Overall, I do like the block - the little flower poking up through the G is quite cute.

And here's a general overview of what the whole sampler looked like when I finished that block:

I say "looked like" because I'm actually hoping to complete the H block tonight. All I have left is a little bit of the filling in around the word and it'll be time to move on to the next row!

Farm is finished!

I finally got a little time to stitch on my business trip, and I finished off F for Farm last Thursday! I don't particularly like the colors on this block - it's all reds and yellows, except for the little green straight stitches. I do like the imagery, though - the horse weather vane and the little bird perched on the capital F.

As you can see, I stitched ahead while I was waiting to get my missing floss. I've done most of the outlining and black floss required for Goose, Horse, and Inn, and just started outlining Jump.

I've actually gotten quite a bit done on Goose over the weekend, but didn't manage to take a picture yet. I'm hoping to finish it off in the next day or two, and then move on and complete Horse before going back to the Gather Hearts project. My calendar says I should be completing H by February 2nd to stay on target - boy am I behind!

Setback!

Well, I was chugging along on the Alphabet Sampler this weekend, and I had high hopes of getting the F and G blocks finished. And then, I went to pick out the last color of floss to finish off Farm.... and I didn't have it! When picking up all the floss the last time I was my (not so) LNS, I'd only stocked up on the floss through Elephant. Ooops... Luckily, I need to travel for work next week, and I can detour to the LNS this weekend, hopefully.

I did get Elephant finished - I love the upper border on this one! The colors aren't very true to life in this picture - I'd unplugged my Ott Lite by the time I took the picture. The elephant is quite cute, but the color of the tusks and his eye unfortunately fades into the background. I haven't decided if I'm going to leave it like it is or rip it out and use another color.

I'm not as happy with the Farm block - the colors are all yellows, reds, and blacks, and I'm not as much a fan of that. I'm reserving judgement until I get the last color in!

I actually went ahead and did the borders and lettering for H, I and part of J, but I think I'm going to put this one aside until I get a chance to pick up the floss to finish Farm.

Learning me some ABC's

I enter at least one project in the State Fair every year, and this year I've decided to do Carriage House Sampling's Alphabet Sampler. I'm doing it over 1 on 40ct linen (err, I've forgotten what type...) mostly using the called for GAST. I'm using WDW Whiskey for the letter boxes, and I'm making a few other changes, like redesigning the cats in the C block to look like two of my cats.

My current goal is one block a week - at that rate, I should be finishing this up by July, just in time to send off to the framer's!

Happy stitching!