March Update

Well, 2020 is definitely becoming an interesting year. Hi all! Hope all of you are well and hale and avoiding all the craziness. I had hoped to update sooner, but things have been hectic, and I'm pretty sure I had the flu last week. (Just the flu, thank you.) Here in Kansas City, we're about to go on city shut down mode this Tuesday. Unfortunately, since I work for a branch of the government the brings in revenue -- especially this time of year -- I am still on the job. So no quarantine stitching for me! (dang it) Of course, that may be subject to change in the next couple weeks. We'll see.

So, stitching! First I'll show off my new Leap Day start, which I'd been looking forward to for a couple months. This is, of course, Ann Tong Uffindell from Hands Across the Sea. I started in the bottom right corner and managed to finish a good chunk of the border (love all those fiddly details) and started on that big chunk of stylized grass:

I decided to be brave and stitch this on 46ct Parchment by Weeks Dye Works using Au Ver A Soie 100/3 silks. 46ct Zweigart really isn't much different than 40ct, so I'm really loving the tiny stitches. The silks took quite a while to get used to though, and I still can't really say I like them, but I don't mind finishing the project with them.

The color palette is a little different than the regular AVAS, but I'm okay with it. However, this silk tangles really easily, and it has a preferred direction: pull of the spool, cut the end, thread the end you just cut. If you do the reverse, it will fight you. I've already had to cut out a few knots, and I'm usually very good at untangling those. But this silk is very round and slippery, so a blunt tapestry needle just isn't up to the task. It's a little bit thinner than DMC, but the coverage is still pretty good. I had a problem at first with the thread constantly slipping out of my needle, but I've learned to keep a good grip on it. Like I said, a lot to get used to.

After Ann, I sort of broke away from my rotation and did some stress stitching. I wasn't feeling well, and the news was a bit overwhelming, so I picked up The Fireplace (aka Sofie) from Golden Kite and just stitched:

What I love about this project is the way it just consumes me. This is kind of true for a lot of full coverage stitching, but when working on all this confetti in the diagonal style, all I can focus on is making the next stitch, park the thread, make the next stitch, etc. It's perfect for tuning everything out. I spent 6 days on her and added about 1100 stitches, so she's up to just over 3300 so far. I also really like seeing all the designs in the carpet come to life. Just wish I could stitch faster. :)

I also made time for the February release of the Wonders of Space SAL by Climbing Goat Designs. This month was part of the Eagle Nebula, which is one of Hubble's most famous images:

To be honest, the colors used in this were pretty crazy. I had red, brown, burgundy, tan and aqua all right next to each other and thought it looked horrible. But stepping back on the finished image, it's really quite perfect. I'm almost done with the March block and looking forward to the next release already.

Finally, I made it back to my rotation to work on Kabuki, though it was tempting to keep working on Sofie. But I'm glad I made the switch:

I'm still about 6 hours off from finishing the row, but at least I got page 7 done. I'm still amazed at how well the colors blend together at a distance. Up close, it's all purple and tan and pink and gray. I may rearrange my plans and bring her out again next month. We'll see.

So that's it for the last 3 weeks. I can't believe March is almost over! Be safe everyone. Until next time!