Slow Sunday Stitching - November 8, 2026

 Fall is well and truly under way in Kansas.  We have had quite a bit of rain this week and a couple of good hard frost nights.  Leaves are turning finally and it's time to put the garden to bed.  This is actually one of my favorite times of the year.  Hopefully the snow and ice will hold off enough to enjoy it for more than a week!  (We have had snow on Halloween before!)

This week 287 stitches went into the #WIPintoShape project ("A Quaker Christmas" from ByGone Stitches) and 591stitches into the pictorial ("Santa of the Forest" by Lavendar and Lace).   The Santa is hard into the metallics, which are slower going than when I was working with the cotton floss.  But I'm still hopeful for a finish soon.

The other news on the stitching front is that I have started the November assignment for the Blackbird Academy SAL using the prompt "Basket".  The new project is "Sunflower Charms"; it is Loose Feathers pattern #15 and was released in 2005.  As you can see from the materials photo, it's much smaller and simpler than the last one ("Moonlit Garden" - link to finish post)

I've been working around the diamond border this week and got to the point where the flower motifs break the border.  My goal for this week is to get the bottom border done and work more on the floral spray.  The Smyrna crosses along the very bottom should go quick. 

Linking up with the SSS crew (current roundup here). 

Slow Sunday Stitching - November 1, 2026 AND 2026 Rotation #8 Slot #3 (Pictorial) Changeover

 Hope everyone had a fun and safe time who celebrated Halloween/Hallows Eve yesterday (and All Saints /All Souls today and tomorrow!)  It was rainy here, so we didn't have quite as much of a turnout of trick and treaters as we usually do when it falls on a weekend.  Then we had the time change overnight too.  I'm feeling rather disorganized this morning.  

But my needlework is getting back on track.  I have kept up with the #WIPintoShape challenge.  I put in 313 stitches this week and am at exactly 17.00%.  I got to the bottom left corner!  (Pictures planned for last Sunday in November.)

Met a goal on "Santa of the Forest" - I finished all the DMC stitches!  (And got a solid start on the metallics.)

 

Here's where I was at the beginning of the month for comparison.  Finished off the robes and greenery on the right corner, did all the lower robes and greenery on the left bottom corner and center.  

Then I started in on the gold (which honestly is a bit of a pain.  I hadn't used the DMC 284Z metal thread before and it strips out something fierce and kinks, too.  But I will prevail!)  I got all the checkerboard trim on both sides of his robe, the bottom part of the bishop's staff and started on the cuff backstitch.  Once I get the backstitch on both cuffs done, I will have 1,150 stitches to go between the remaining metallics and beads. 

PLUS, I have a finish (though not an FFO quite yet).  The Blackbird Academy piece for October, "Moonlit Garden" got finished last night!  (Details in finish post here.)  

I need to find a frame for it.  I am debating if I want to put a couple of stars along the bottom to square off the border.   One of the people in the challenge group did that and I really like how it looks.  

Speaking of needlework groups - check out the SSS crew at our weekly roundup!

FINISHED NEEDLEWORK: "Moonlit Garden" by Blackbird Designs

 

Pattern: "Moonlit Garden" Loose Feathers #22

Designer: Blackbird Designs

Fabric: 30 count "Broomstick Brown" linen by R&R Reproductions

Threads:  Weeks Dyeworks as charted

 

Stitches:  two over two full cross, outline (added to sides of house)

8 inches W x 9 inches H

 

Started 10/1/2026, needlework completed 10/31/2026

42 hours

Blackbird Academy SAL - October 2026 (prompt = pumpkin)

Framed by me 

Slow Sunday Stitching - October 25, 2026 AND 2026 Rotation #8 Slot #2 (Historic) Changeover

My rotation is all messed up after being sick for a couple of weeks and not being very energetic.  I'm feeling marginally better, though the cough is still lingering (darn asthma that lets every virus that floats around land right in my lungs).  So, I'm afraid I might have to break the streak of pumping through the entire set of projects in a month.   That's OK; the annual plan is to get through the rotation every 6 weeks at a max (which when you drop out 'Full Coverage February' gives 8 full rotations a year).   I'm currently on Rotation #8 for 2026 so I don't mind slowing down the pace a bit. 

Andrew over at The Runner Stitcher (link to his YouTube channel) is hosting the second #WIPintoShape as he prepares to run the London marathon in late April next year.  Last time when he was setting up for the Sydney and then New York marathon, I worked on my pictorial, which was "Mead Dragon" at the time.   The marathon stitching got me through the boring background on that piece, but I decided that I didn't want to do another pictorial since "Santa of the Forest" is so close to a finish that it wouldn't get me very far into the challenge.  My next pictorial project is still in the 'charting into Pattern Keeper' stage (more on that in a few weeks when the Santa is closer to a finish) so it's not really challenge appropriate either.

I settled on using "A Quaker Christmas" for the challenge piece.  Andrew reports his training miles every day and we are stitching 10 stitches for every mile he runs.  He's even set up a Google doc to track everything.  I'll also be reporting on my progress here the last Sunday of the month.

Since the start of the challenge, I have stitched 888 stitches.  The project is at 15.66% as of today's stitches. Like all conditioning plans, this one starts out with small, achievable goals.  Therefore, I have less progress this rotation than some, but as we get further in, the distance (and the number of stitches) will increase steadily.  This first bit is all under 100 stitches a day, most days are 3.5 to 5 miles (35 to 50 stitches).  Tomorrow's goal is 100 stitches for his first 10-mile run.  I feel like we have reached a milestone!

Here's where I am at the first month's check in.  All the stitches were in the 'cluster of stars' half medallion and the word beside it.  

And what the whole thing looks like now.  I'm still heading down the left border of half medallions.  This next motif is one I've named 'butterflies and branches' and it will get me all the way to the bottom left corner.

And here's where I was at the start of the challenge.

I'm going to hop over to see what the rest of the SSS crew is up to this week.  (Link to the roundup here.)

Slow Sunday Stitching - October 18, 2026

 Still have a cough and sinus infection (ugh) and zero energy 😫.  

I did get to 65% on "Moonlit Garden" - which is on pace for a finish this month!  But no progress on knitting or quilting at all since the first week of October.  

But the big news is the mid-month check in for "Santa of the Forest".  He's 92.35% finished!   And I'm down to the last color of DMC; unfortunately, that final DMC color has about a thousand stitches left, but I'm thinking I can get through it by the end of the month with no problem.  That will leave the gold metallic and two metallic/DMC blends and beads yet to do in November.   New Goal - finish the stitching and beading by Thanksgiving and do a temporary mount over canvas or stretcher bars to display for the holidays this year.

Still making some progress, so I'm linking up with the SSS crew - here's this week's link party.

Slow Sunday Stitching - October 11, 2026

 I'm late and I don't have much to report.  Honestly, it's been a terrible week for crafting.  I'm down with a head cold and am still very raspy and sneezy.  Ugh.   What little tiny bit of attention I have had over the last few days has gone into the Blackbird Academy piece "Moonlit Garden".  I am at about 42.5% (including the verse) and have finished a couple of the colors.

The first of the week, before I got sick, I did finish the Vintage German needlepoint piece (Finish post is at this link.)  And I did manage to get 890 stitches into "Santa of the Forest"; there were a couple of days with very minimal progress, but any stiches count, right?  

I apologize to the SSS crew for the late posting.  Hopefully I'll get to feeling better soon. Link to the current week round-up here.

FINISHED NEEDLEWORK: "Alter Bauernhof / Old Farmhouse " By Tapex Vienna

 

Vintage German Needlepoint Kit attributed to Tapex Vienna Company c 1965

Gifted to me by my mother-in-law, who found it unstarted in a secondhand shop in Wiesbaden

Kit materials plus extra DMC Tapestry Wool where the kit material ran short

10 Count "Penelope" canvas with printed design

Stitched in half cross - using basket weave technique wherever possible, a tiny bit of straight stitch embellishment

Begun 11/23/2025

Stitching Finished 10/7/2026

Approx time = 88.5 hours: 18,600 stitches

Frame/Finish TBD