Slow Sunday Stitching - May 3, 2020

Well, the needlework obsession continues - which is rather weird, usually I default to my first craft of knitting when I am stressed..  I may have signed up for the Maynia facebook group.  But that does NOT mean that I am starting 31 projects in May!!!!  You can do 'Monogamaina', where you stitch on just one project all month or do your own thing.  I'm going to keep working on three projects:  My usual rotation of Dutch Beauty (with the goal of 10 hours this month) the Sampler Sweetbag (with the goal of getting the stitching all done) and JC's USMC Seal (goal is 1,000 stitches this month). 

So a couple of hours into Dutch Beauty this week.   I'm working on the tall 'lily' vase that is the motif that spans the page break between 15/O and 16/P.   I need to get a bit more of it done before I can move the Q Snaps down and fix the poor headless lion.   I discovered during the virtual retreat that my 'happy space' for working on my floor frame is the bottom six to eight inches.  When I get further up than that, both my shoulder and my eyes get unhappy.    (Picture is dark, it's cloudy here today.)

I am continuing to make excellent progress on the back of the Sweetbag.   I want to get the stitching finished - including the detached buttonhole - so that it can go into the finish/frame slot in the rotation.  I figure another two or three hours should see the back finished, the remaining section is easy, but I do need to spend some time with graph paper and figure out what to put into the sides, since I dropped out 24 threads on each side and now the space is too small for a half motif of the original design.  (Same designer as the sweetbag - Sharon Cohen of the Nostalgic Needle)

And my son's USMC Seal is also chugging along.   I was going to set my goal for this to be 100 stitches every weekend, but I'm managing more than that so far.   But the very small and precise over one would be very easy to burn out on.  I'd rather put it away wanting to do more, than dread taking it out!

With all the counted thread embroidery, I don't want you to think there hasn't been knitting!  I got the second arm ribbing done on Rosemarkie this week and that side bound off.   Just need to run in all the ends and tack down the facing formed by the steek.   I may try to do that today for my Slow Sunday Stitching.  (link to this week's roundup)   Looking forward to cutting that big center steek and seeing if the thing fits!

No quilting AT ALL again this week.   All my sewing mojo still going into masks.  (sigh - I'm beginning to dread them, but I still have a few that I've promised people.)