Slow Sunday Stitching - April 4, 2026

 Happy and blessed Easter to all who celebrate today!  Handbells are playing at the main service, so this will be a very brief recap.  Not difficult as I have only worked on three things so far in April.   The first one doesn't have a photo, but I put 688 stitches into the Santa of the Forest since the first (see the changeover post here for what it looked like then).   I'll try to get a decent photo for next week's post, but since it's a 'daily 100 stitches pictorial', I may only update once each rotation or month like I did with the Mead Dragon, unless you all want a weekly update.

Second is my knitting.  The charity scarf is over the 3/4 point and the last ball of yarn is down to the size of a baseball and shrinking rapidly. 

yellow marker is at the halfway point

Third on the list actually has the most time in since the rotation restarted on the first.  The vintage German needlepoint "Alter Bauernhof / Old Farmhouse" has five hours in already!

And the back so you can see the progress.  I finished up the right-side horizon and tree line, then moved over to the church to finish the walls and the bushes/trees around it.  Now I have started working on the farmhouse roof and am finishing my threads over on the barn in the right middle distance.

I've used all but two colors now, so the palette area is almost filled in.  (Some needlepointers fill the sample palette in first, but I do each color when I use it the first time.) I am so tempted to jump into the timber area on the house or barn just to get those last two done.  But I will be good.  The two roof areas shouldn't take too long (I hope).

Linking up with the SSS crew (weekly link party).  I'll be back after church to see what everyone else is up to.

FINISHED KNITTING PROJECTS - Q1 2026 (January, February, March)

 Autumn Roads Musselburgh Hat

2026 Rotation #2, Slot #4 (Pictorial) Changeover

"Santa of the Forest" by Lavendar and Lace is off to a good start.  Stitching started on March 23 after several days devoted to the set up.  So far I have 1,338 stitches in or 3.86%.  I'm working on row 26, using the same typewriter method that I used on the Dragon.  Though since there's no background on this piece, the rows are not nearly as obvious.  There are more 'swathes' of color on this project, so when I carry down a color (like the bright red on the hood edge), it can go quite a way before I run out of thread or stitching in that direction.

The "Raw" linen is a bit more irregular than the evenweave that I used for the Dragon, but I think the 2 over 2 coverage on the 32 count is good. So far, I'm just in the hood and hair, though the lowest point of the greenery is actually touching where the owl on his shoulder will show up and I'm touching skin colors in a couple of areas of his hair.  

Just a note, the bishop's crozier/staff is all metallics and metallic blends, so it will go in next to last and I'm substituting beads for the random metallic 'stars' scattered around St. Nicholas' head - those will be at the very last.

Slow Sunday Stitching March 29, 2026 AND 2026 Rotation #2 Slot #3 (Modern) Changeover

 First of all, a Palm Sunday prayer for all those who are celebrating Holy Week starting today!  I'm going to be SO busy at church this week, I don't expect a ton of stitching time upcoming.  

Spring is well and truly here in Kansas.   Woodpeckers are building a nest somewhere nearby; I can hear them tapping away in the morning.  There's a nest of mourning doves somewhere nearby, too.  I have seen them pecking in the lawn several times.  I have set up the bird bath, so hopefully will start to have some birds visit.  Now that the deck is done except for getting it stained in July, I am turning my attention to the garden situation.   That will be a lot of work over the next few months.   But so worth it in the end.   

I did get the Shepherd's Bush "Violet Roll" well under way with about 5 hours done (including the set up).   I think this is probably about 1/3 complete.  There are three bands yet to do - a denser floral band that's about 13 stitches high just above (and slightly overlapping) the text band, a small area of bead flowers with buttonhole stitch stems, and finally up at the top, a section of Heirloom Embroidery (batiste lace, applique and beads). I also need to go back and add the cross stitch to the double running vines band; I thought there were just beads for the flowers on that band, but mis-read the pattern.  The flowers are actually 2/3 cross stitch and 1/3 beads.  I've gotten spoiled by the more recent Mill Hill kits where the round symbols are always the beads.

Then there's more beading throughout, a charm, some drawn thread and hemstitching on the ends and the FFO assembly with a flat felled handsewn seam.  So quite a bit more work considering how small the project is, but I love how spring-y it looks.  The project perfectly matches my mood, and I'm looking forward to getting back to this project when it comes around again in rotation #3.

The last few days of the month will be spent getting as far as I can on the Santa of the Forest.  Eight hundred stitches have gotten me this far - still just blobs of color, though you can begin to see there's a hood and hair!  I'm planning on restarting the rotation on April 1 (no April's Fools!), so I'll post the final stats from the start to the end of March then.

And the charity scarf has passed the halfway point; I added the second ball of yarn this week (yellow marker on the left side).

Linking up with the SSS crew as usual - current round up.

Slow Sunday Stitching - March 22, 2026

 I'm just linking up the goals that got accomplished this week: the changeover on the "Not Counted Thread" slot for the vintage needlepoint "Old Farmhouse", and the "Modern" slot's Finished Object of the "Garden Santa" ornament.  Things have been rather crazy around here - we have had a record low temperature (which turned all my spring bulbs into mush) and a near record high so far this month!  The flowers, fruit trees and birds are all so confused. Plus Daylight Savings Spring Ahead last weekend - so the people are all jet lagged LOL.  AND Spring Break for the kids in school was this week.  Which for teens equals sleeping all day and gaming all night (at least for my teen 😕).

To add to the general feeling of being quite unsettled, I am now in a very weird spot for my rotation.   The "Modern" slot only needed about three hours to get to an FFO, so it really needs a new start.  And I'm in the process of setting up the Santa for the "Pictorial" slot (I have sorted the floss and set up the floss away bags, but that's it so far).  And I'm trying to make a linen decision on the next Blackbird Design for the "Historic/Prim" slot so I can get it set up.   See a theme here?  I seldom have three-fourths of my rotation all in the set up phase at the same time.  It's very disconcerting when what I want to do is just sit down and stitch!  I did NOT plan this well at all! 😖

And honestly, the setup is not my favorite part of a project, though I do love how tidy and full of potential a new project is as you put in those first stitches. 

Here's a materials shot before I sort floss, and get the linen mounted for the next 'Modern' project.  It's the "Violet Roll" by Shepherd's Bush.  I love their tiny band samplers that are made up into needlerolls.  I've done several in the past and there are two more in the stash.  There are beads, a charm, specialty stitches and lace, hemstitching and ribbon.  All sorts of fun stuff packed into a very tiny project. The cover photos do not do them justice!

In knitting news, I'm at 22 inches on the scarf.  Still working on the first ball of yarn (of two).

Linking up with the SSS crew (this week's roundup)

FINISHED NEEDLEWORK: "Heirloom Santa: Garden Santa" by Willmaur

 The ornament in honor of my dad is finished.  This is a slightly modified version of the "Garden Santa" by Sandra Cozzolino for Willmaur before she moved to Mill Hill.  I did add a few beads Mill Hill petite black (#42014) to the butterfly antennae, standard 11/0 red beads (#02013) as the berries in the greenery, and brown beads (#02068) to the seed head of the sunflower.  Beads attached with Nymo dark thread.

2026 Rotation #2, Slot #2 (Not counted X stitch) Changeover

 It didn't take me long to finish up 10 hours on the vintage needlepoint this week.  There is a total of 30 hours in this landscape so far.  I got the rest of the pine trees on the left done (and finished up my thread over on the right) on Sunday and put in the left side meadow area on Monday (again finishing up on the last thread over on the right).  I'll work on that area on the right when I pick this project back up for 2026 Rotation #3.   

And the back so you can actually see the progress - basically all mountains and trees this time around.  

And where I was at the beginning of the rotation for comparison