Slow Sunday Stitching - May 14, 2023

The first two days of vacation have been wonderful and I'm looking forward to the next week off.   It's rare that I get to take a weekend to weekend five days, but the calendar and workload just fell perfectly this month.  

We had our Mother's Day celebration on Friday, the grandkids, my son and daughter in law, and her mom and I all went out to Chili's.   Walt and I used to go there all the time, but I hadn't been in ages.  The food was good and the service adequate for a busy Friday night.

I worked on the Sugar Skull on Thursday and Friday before going out to dinner and got in 440 stitches and finished the bone on the right cheek/upper jaw!  About to start filling in the colors in that area, so I'll share a picture next week.   Last Sunday to Wednesday I worked on the Eagle, but didn't get ten hours finished, so I will be back to work on it later in the rotation and will share a picture then. (I knew that goal was overly ambitious!)

What I will share is my Kathy Barrick piece "My Day Complete".   This was my birthday start back in October and I divided the piece into twelve more or less equal parts with a plan to do one a month.  I actually had parts 1 to 7 (planned for Nov to May) finished prior to the start of this rotation and it looks like I will finish ahead of plan.  

I'm doing a virtual retreat this weekend (Saturday to Monday) since I had work conflicts with the actual #24HoursOfCrossStitch in April.   On Saturday, I worked on this project for almost 8 hours and  completed parts 8 & 9 (planned for June and July)- the lower branch and leaves.

And where I started for comparison:

What I have left on this project is the remaining lettering, the tree roots and filling in the rest of the tree trunk.   I'm going to work on the fill in of the tree trunk next, and reward myself for each length of floss with a few letters.   I love doing lettering as a rule and often use it as a 'carrot' to get through a boring part. 

Another reward is linking up with the SSS crew (this week's round up here).  The folks there are great encouragement.