Page 2 DONE!

I am so thrilled to be posting this update.

I finished page 2 of the Hermit chart with 1 day to spare.  It is so exciting to see this project evolve.  My hand is cramping a bit from all the late night stitching and with the summer weather arriving, I might be limited in how much work I can get done, but I will plug along and see how it goes.

Now the big decision is where to go from here?  I'll be starting page 3 tonight, and I think I'll continue on the upper left side of the design and work on the wall in the background.

Thanks so much to all those following along!!  It's nice to have this way of tracking my progress.

Summertime!

Hi everyone!!!  My first non-cross stitch post.  Not to worry, won't happen very often.  I am just excited that the weather has been great where I live and we have been working hard in the backyard getting it ready for the kids. 

Hubby built a pond our first summer in the house, and has been wanting to re-do it for a few years now.  We finally got a chance this past long weekend and I helped with the flagstones and with beverage support (lots of water, and a few beers!).  We were able to pawn off our children to each set of grandparents for 2 days so we got lots of work done.

Here's a photo of the new pond. 

We have added some plants and some butterfly koi, but no picture available yet.  I'm super happy with the awesome job my husband did!!  He single-handedly has transformed our backyard into an urban oasis.  With such lovely scenery, I suspect I will be starting to do some cross-stitching outdoors!

Oh, and speaking of cross-stitching.  Remember that deadline of May 25th I set?  I will probably be done a day early!!  Stay tuned!

First Stitching Deadline - 1 week to go!

So,  I am one week from my first stitching deadline.  My goal to finish the second page of the chart was set for May 25.  I don't think I'll make it.  

See the paw?  Most of the upper 1/3 of the Hermit's paw has stitching errors.  Seriously.  I made some god awful counting errors. I had to kind of make up the stitches, I was so off.  I just mixed up the thread colours enough that hopefully it won't be too noticeable.  It's the biggest error (so far) on the Hermit.

Once the error was discovered, I spent an extraordinary amount of time one night figuring how to fix it, which is why I don't think I'll make my deadline.  Sigh .... 

An update and goal setting.

It feels like its been a month since I've posted a photo of my progress on The Hermit.  It was a rough week but I am over the worst of it and ready to get back to stitching.  I was able to get some work done this weekend, so I have a photo to show off.

So, we can see more of the Hermit's left paw and his cloak next to it.  I must say, I do love stitching the purple cloak. It's such a rich colour!

There was lots of frogging this past weekend.  Serves me right for stitching when there are other things on my mind.  Usually I am able to let my mind go blank but it was difficult this week.  I'm just happy I was able to detect the errors as I made them and not a few weeks from now.  Still, there are a few errors on this second page that I know of but couldn't fix, and it's really annoying, though I know no one else will ever notice.

I've decided to set a goal for myself.  I want to have the second page finished by May 25.  I have no idea why I just picked that date, but there it is.

Wish me luck!

A Week of No Stitching

This past week was rough for me.  It started with migraines, then a few days of relief, only to be followed by more migraines.  Sometimes I get a week like that and this was it.  Fingers crossed, the worst is behind me, for the time being.  I am hoping to get some good stitching time in this weekend so I can update next with a new photo.

Stay tuned!!

Frogging.

If there's one thing I can't stand it's making a mistake.  You'd think doing counted cross stitch would be easy.  One counts the squares to figure out where the next stitch is placed.  Just when you think it's all going well you realized you've made a counting error.  It's happened in every project of mine. Every.Single.One.  My husband jokes that he hears me swear prolifically at least once during a project.  "Don't worry," he says, "No one will notice the mistake."  That doesn't matter to me - *I* know it's there.

So, if I find a mistake and I can correct it, I usually do.  I've learned that in the cross stitching world, this is called, "frogging".  Rip it, rip it, rip it.  I don't actually rip the thread out, rather, I backtrack the stitching and remove it.  It's a royal pain in the ass.  It's very time consuming and irritating.  It makes me mad.  Sometimes when an error is discovered and too much stitching has occurred around it, I can't possible fix it.  That makes me even more furious.  I swear, one of these days, I'm going to have a project that has ZERO errors in it. 

Sadly, it's not going to be the Hermit.  I spent the better part of my 2 hours of stitching last night frogging two separate errors.  Not to mention the fact that I discovered a few other errors but they are too far gone now to fix.  No one will ever notice the errors.  But I know they're there.  And even in the framed, finished works, my eye always finds the mistake.  Irritating, I tell you.

So, no photo update today.  Just a vent about mistakes.  I know I'm bound to make more, but I will strive to take more care in every single stitch I make.