A Work in Progress

In the past few weeks, I've settled into a bit more of a routine and I'm accomplishing quite a bit on the home front.  I don't know about your house, but ours seems to accumulate piles of papers.  In between lunching with friends (most of whom will, sadly, have to return to work at the end of August), I've managed to put a lot of that paper in the recycling bin or file it away.  So our house is looking somewhat less cluttered. I've also settled into a bit of a stitching routine and am usually able to work on quilting for a hour or two each afternoon, and stitching for around two hours in the evening.  I have a quilt almost assembled so I'll so I hope to show that in my next post.  But the star of today's post is my progress on the Scottish Band Sampler (Scarlet Letter).  I'm nearly done with all those letters and the double running stitch around them.    The scalloped section below the letters is charted for eyelets.  I'm no...

You probably didn't notice (or maybe you all are just too polite to say anything), but I didn't stitch much this fall.  It was a combination of things including being very busy at work with my new assignment, incorporating more exercise into my schedule, and a persistent problem with my right shoulder.  Not to mention that I tend to fall asleep as soon as I sit down to stitch!  So most nights, I was putting one to two strands into my piece before I had to call it quits.  Not conducive to progress and therefore, not too much to show on this blog.  The shoulder problem is mostly resolved, thanks to physical therapy.  However, I was still feeling some twinges when I was stitching.  I thought that using a stand would help by changing the motion of stitching slightly and/or allowing me to keep my right arm still if I could learn to stitch with my left hand on top of the piece and my right hand under.  I'm happy to say that the new stand that w...

While cruising the blogs recently, I ran across mention of Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year challenge.  I have exactly one Scarlet Letter kit, Scottish Band, in my stash and it's been there since the beginning of time.  Well, maybe, not that long, but certainly since the start of the millenium.  In fact, it's been there so long that I raided the kit for silks I needed for another project.  I think this challenge is just what I need to get stitching on this project.  Wish me luck!