The Master continues

The Master is still out and making progress.  Monday evening, I finished page 2.

I've been doing a few hundred stitches each night and had lots of time this weekend to stitch.  Last night, I left it looking like this.

I'm going to cross my fingers and hope for a page finish this weekend so I can join the Tilton new start SAL.

Update on Tilton's The Master

Last night saw me creeping up on a page finish on Tilton's The Master.

I'm hoping another evening or two will get me there.

Yesterday, I pulled and zigzagged fabric for a new start SAL in the Facebook group Cross Stitch and Discuss.  It's for a new Tilton start on September 30.  I have all the floss already.  It's not bobbined yet, but I may just bobbin what I need as I need it.  I haven't really felt like bobbining thread.  I chose to do Feathers in the Wind since I already had the chart.

While I had the sewing machine out, I also zig zagged fabric for Charting Creations The Forgotten since I think it will be my New Years start for 2017.

Is it wrong to be thinking about a New Year's start already??

Page 21

I finished page 21 of Lust Monday night after we got home from DS#1's football game.  They won 26-8 against a team that went 4-0 last year.  This team has improved so much from the team they were last year.  DS#1 is playing any position the coach will put him into and having a blast.  Here's a punt return.

Lust when I took her off the qsnaps.

I brought Tilton's The Master back out to finish at least page 2 and get a break from the reds.  My goals this year for Lust was page 21 and 22 and for The Master was page 2 and 3.  I'm hoping using The Master for a break from Lust, I'll be able to meet both goals.

This is last night's progress.  If you look closely, you can see the white and super pale blue stitches.

So close!

That bottom right corner is all I have left on this page.

I hope to finish it tonight and rotate to The Master for a page or so.

1800 to a page finish

Since my mojo came back from vacation, I've made some great progress on Lust.  So much so that I'm hoping to have this page finished by the end of the week.

9/1/16

9/5/16

The last week or so has been busy and I haven't a had a chance to get the bathroom started.  DS#1 and I were going to yesterday morning until we discovered the nails in the nail gun were too long and we didn't have anything shorter.  DH is supposed to pick up some shorter nails today so I'm hoping to make some progress tonight.

So many reds!

I'm still working on Lust.  And my mojo may be making a come back.  Sometimes I just wish my kids weren't so busy and I could just pull out my stitching and stitch!

Her skirt stitches up fairly quickly since there are some nice big blocks.  I just have to find the time when there's nothing else going on.

Anyway.  We had a fairly busy weekend.  We had a birthday which meant that DS#1 got to pick where we went to eat.  My baby is getting so big!  He's only 3 inches shorter than I am.  For now.

We our normal weekend pick the garden which resulted in okra in the freezer and 8.5 quarts of salsa.  I still need to check my tomatillos to see if I can get another batch of salsa verde out of them this year.  I also have some mangos in the fridge to try some hot salsa for my husband.

Tonight is DS#1's first football game of the season.  He's been practicing for several new positions this year so I'm excited to see how he does.

August WIPacolypse

I had to look to see the last time I'd done a WIPacolypse post and it turns out to be May.  Where did this summer go?  In May, we were still busy with baseball and just getting started with the idea that school was out for 12 weeks.  My mom had just moved from 100 miles away to 30 minutes away and she watched my boys several weeks for me.  Our garden was pretty newly planted and hadn't started giving us much except for greens.

So lets start from the end of May.

At that point, I was working on Warrior Alice by Eclectic Bloke Designs.  I had just started page 2.  By the end of the month, I finished page 2.  There's not too much to see but I think page 3 starts the top of Alice's head.

Then Lust by HAED came out and I made a little bit of progress

before I got distracted with a shiny new start.  This is the model of Northern Expressions Needlework's Star Spangled Banner.

While it was out this time, I started on 28 ct Monaco dyed by Mo's Sale and decided I wasn't happy with it.  I did a little stash diving and came up with 40ct  Cauldron from Picture This Plus.

Much better.  Until all the blue got to me.  Or was it the jessica stitches?  Don't know.  This got put down for a little while.

And I pulled out Chatelaine's Heritage Sampler and made my goal on it for this year.  There was a lot of frogging over one stitching and I left some that I really didn't want to frog and redo, but I won't tell if you won't.

Also around this time, our boysenberry bush decided it was very happy and berries started getting ripe.  I made boysenberry jam, I froze lots and lots of berries and I tried some compound butter.  Not bad.

I also worked on a good sized home improvement project.  I have a narrow office that didn't have a very big desk.  We just had a little one that I bought after the tornado 12 years ago.  It was time to upgrade.  This is my first attempt at putting this beast together so it would come apart to come into the house.

After I put Heritage Sampler away, I pulled Star Spangled Banner back out.  I finished the blue and added the stars.  This is so pretty IRL.  There are so many beads and the specialty stitches give a great texture.

I also worked on the first couple of bands before I put it away again.

At this point in my summer, I started looking for my stitchy mojo and spending a lot more time reading.  I tried pulling Warrior Alice back out

Nope.  Wasn't feeling her.

Then I tried The Loneliness of Autumn by Love Thy Thread.  

Yep.  There is was.  At least for a bit.  I finished page 3 and got a good start on page 4.  I love how this one stitches up even if it is all confetti.

To try to tempt my mojo back, I pulled out my kit for Chatelaine's Hawaiian Mandala.

In this timeframe, the garden kicked into gear.  I made 3 quarts of pickled beets, 10 quarts of pickled green beans, 14 pints of salsa, 17 pints of salsa verde and 8 gallon bags full of okra, ready to fry.

I also finished by desk.  Here are some before and afters.

Here's the corner that gave me such fits.  I ended up building this as a one piece top and removing the legs to bring it in the house.  Even then, it was a close thing.

Currently, I'm working on HAED's Lust again.  I'm making slow progress but it is progress.

I've gotten a little further than this as this is Sunday's picture, but not a huge amount.

Happy WIPacolypse!