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.