Slow Sunday Stitching - August 2, 2026 AND 2026 Rotation #5 Slot #4 (Pictorial) Changeover

Time for the end of July check in on my pictorial piece "Santa of the Forest" by Lavendar and Lace.  This also ends off Rotation #5.  This month, I added 5,396 stitches, which brings me to 20,433 stitches in this project so far (approximately 58.88%).  And I have now finished 23 colors.

And where I was at the beginning of the month

Good progress: bear finished, and I added the checkerboard sleeves, the main part of the forest scene inside the fold of St. Nick's robe, and his colorwork mittens (white on green) are also done, along with bringing the folds of his cloak down to row 150 on both sides.  Speaking of the mittens, I think they may be Latvian style mittens (perhaps a pair like these - link to Ravelry).  Either that or his checkered sleeves have wide embroidered shirt cuffs and the mitten wrists are tucked into them.  But honestly, the purple patterns look like colorwork knitting to me - so I'm going with mittens with gauntlet cuffs.

You can see the outlines of the three remaining animals clearly now (left to right - dove, bunny and the wolf's ears).   What's up next?  The dove is very wide - wingtip to wingtip it is about 75 rows high, so I will probably need to work it in thirds.  The upper wing is almost completely outlined at this point, so I'll fill that in next before I move the fabric up.

And on the subject of colorwork knitting, my sampler hat is coming along.  And I think I have made a decision on which pattern I am going to work on the sweater yoke.  

I sampled the following three patterns:

1) from a sweater pattern I purchased (link to Etsy, the designer is not on Ravelry).  Very nice, but a little delicate - probably more suited to fingering weight than worsted weight yarn.  Also, needs an odd number of repeats to balance, and my sweater has an even repeat count.   On the docket for a future sweater though.

2) designed myself.  I like it, but it is not quite right - the eye is more drawn to the brown than the white, so the transition isn't what I was going for.  I may try to rework it for a future sweater at some point.

3) also designed by me.  This is the one I am choosing for the sweater yoke.   It's graphic enough to work in the worsted weight yarn and I like the geometric look of it.  I'm going to sample the decrease area depth on the hat (which will be more of a stocking cap shape) and when it's done, I'm move back to the sweater.

Starting Rotation #6, so pulling out the vintage needlepoint again.  I've been rolling through the slots about once a month, which is getting me good progress on everything.  I do need to get some finishing done.  The 'under the bed box' (aka the 'box of doom'/finished project purgatory) hasn't gotten any emptier!  

Even though it's not out of the 'doom box', I did finish (and very nearly FFO!) a project this week - the travel project. The next perforated paper Santa, which is the Toymaker Santa in honor of my father-in-law, is all stitched, embellished, and assembled.  I'm just waiting for it to dry overnight so that I can trim the backing down before I snap a picture.

Linking up with the SSS crew (this week's round-up is here)