Cross Stitch Update

I thought I was going to have a lot of cross-stitch time this week but so far, it hasn’t panned out.  I did get some progress though so I’m happy about that.

Lookie, lookie.  I finished the December block.  YAHOO!  I stayed up until 11:15 pm on Halloween night because I was bound and determined to finish it in October.  Well, I made it with only minutes to spare.  I’m so happy to have it finished.

This block is stitched for our son, Buck, and Lora.  Their three kids’ initials are scattered among the snowflakes…Scotty, Lucy, and Lilly.

That leaves me with a new space ready to start the big bonus block and then this will be finished.  I am so happy that I pushed ahead on this one and am this far along.

See this big space.  That is the place for the last bonus block.  I got started on the border and stitched on it two evenings…both were shorter periods of time.  I’m hoping to get the border stitched and then start on the house.  There is one in the upper right-hand corner of the space.  This last block has quite a bit of “over one”.  That is the slow stitching needed that I stitch in mini size one thread of floss over one thread of linen.

Anniversaries of the Heart was my new year, new start.  It’s a thing some cross-stitchers do.  They start a project on January 1st with the intention of completing the stitching over the next year.  Anniversaries of the Heart was an ambitious project for me…but, I’m getting closer and closer to a finish.  My hope is to finish this by the end of the month but…I’m not sticking to that as a hard and fast rule.  I know I have upcoming medical stuff and depending on how that lands determines if I’ll get it done in November or if it carries into December.

Regardless I should be able to finish this by the end of the year.  YAHOO!!   There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  I plan to still keep pushing on this.

Next up, you might remember …
that two weeks ago I left you with my “A Changed World” in an awkward spot.  I had stitched something but realized I stitched it wrong.

I was working on the yellowish flower on the bottom left.  I realized that I stitched it in the wrong color.  It was supposed to be white where I put yellow.  Well on Monday night I finally quilt working on the blog at 9:45 pm and realized I wasn’t going to have very much time for cross-stitching.

I really wasn’t up for starting in on the new Anniversaries of the Heart block.  I ended up pulling out this.

I got the stitching ripped out and stitched it in white like it was supposed to be.

I loaded my thread and went to stitch the yellow part of the flower only to discover I had stitched the white in the wrong spot.  AHH!!

Notice in the picture above where the solid white is that the leaf is attached to the bottom row of x’s?  I attached it to the top row of x’s.  UGH.  I thought about just going to bed.

I decided I wasn’t going to do that.  I didn’t care what time I went to bed.  I was going to finish that flower as I wanted to be DONE WITH IT!  So I stayed up until after 11 pm stitching…

So it took me over an hour to stitch the top of that white and yellow flower.  It was frustrating…BUT.  IT. IS. DONE.

That’s all the stitching I did on this for the week.

It’s not all the cross-stitch stuff I did though.  I’ve been thinking of my upcoming cancer treatment.  I had it in my mind to stitch something that was commemorative of this time in my life.   There is a piece called Floral Motif Sampler by The Scarlett House.  Here is a picture of it.

I’ve seen a couple of cross stitchers finish this and the pictures are so much better than this picture.  Anyway, I was looking at it and tried to count out how many flowers were in it.

It was impossible to do while looking at it on a screen.  So I enlarged the picture and printed it out.

Then I took a pen a wrote on the flowers and counted.

I came up with 50 large ones and 17 tiny flowers.

I got to thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could stitch a flower a day in over my upcoming treatment and recovery.  Hmm.  Some of those big flowers I think would take more than a day but…some of those little tiny ones wouldn’t take much time at all.

It would kind of be like a countdown.  As the chart got complete, it would symbolize the end of my recovery.  This doesn’t take in for the border…or for me stitching something wrong.

I’m thinking I’ll likely have about 60 days…I hope to be doing childcare for part of the time so during that time, I’d tackle a little motif.  On days I wasn’t working, I’d try to tackle a bigger motif.

I was thinking about ordering it all but then I started reasoning I could figure out how to do this with something else I have here.  But…this chart seemed perfect for it.  The chart doesn’t have a wild border AND there are about the right number of flowers to represent my days.  But then reason told me just use something I already have.

Later that day I went out to get the mail.  There was a package from Ila.

I opened it up.  There were the great nut clusters we all love plus a new kind that I immediately tried and loved.  There were some magazines…and a card.  The outside of the card had a note, “For something that makes you smile”.  Oh my.  It was perfect.  Inside the card was cash.

That sealed it.  I called and ordered the Floral Motif Sampler and told them to kit it up.  THANKS, ILA!!  I’m so excited as this REALLY was the perfect piece for my cancer stitch.  Every time I see it finished I’ll remember the time I spent stitching while cancer was pounding at my door.

Ila’s gift made me smile today and will make me smile all the days I’m stitching on it.  You truly are the sweetest Ila.  You are one of those people I strive to be like.

I think stitching this is going to make things a little better.  I love the idea of having this as a finished piece once I recover.

That’s the cross-stitch update.

oops.  I just realized that I forgot to show you what I bought when I went to The Stitchery Nook.  I’ll save that for next week.  By the way, The Stitchery Nook is where I got the chart, linen, and floss.  Does anyone want to stitch along with me?  You can find the Stitchery Nook HERE.  I just called over and told them to kit it up.