Year of Starts #10

Hi all! Back with another update and another new start. At least you knew this one was coming. :)

First, I'll show you my progress on Hillside Travelers, which I worked on for six days over the last two weeks. Here's where I left off:

The lake was originally charted to be stitched in a gray-green color, the same color as that gentleman's jacket. I know lakes can be murky at times, but I wanted a nice blue color. I couldn't decide what to pick, so I just grabbed a color at random and went with it. I ended up with 3752, which seems like a nice gray-blue on the bobbin, but looks kind of bright in this piece. Here's the full view out of the qsnap:

After that, I spent several days filling in the bottom portion. I like to stitch in all the background before I do letters when it's full coverage like this. I think when you do the letters first, the threads kind of get sucked back into the fabric and end up looking sparse. I haven't gotten to the letters yet, but I think you can see what it says:

And of course, on the 18th, I had a new start. This time it was on Jack's Bash, by Plum Street. I went way out of my comfort zone with this fabric color. I had originally thought to stitch this on a light tan color, but I had this fabric in my stash, and when I saw the colors against this fabric, it just seemed to click. I've only worked on it for two days, so I don't have many colors in yet, but here it is:

The fabric is 40ct Cedar Plank by Lakeside Linens. It's a nice warm mottled gray, and some of the darker spots have almost a purple hue. I thought it would end up looking like an eerie, foggy night, perfect for a Halloween party. :) It's a bit more difficult to stitch on gray 40ct than tan, but I think I can manage.

Well, that's all for now. I'm still obsessed with my Marquise, so I won't have too much progress on Crystals and Crows this month. But there's always next month. :) Hope you all are getting in some good stitching! Until next time!