A HAED SAL?!

I did a thing--I signed up for a HAED SAL for next year. While I am 99.99% certain I will not finish it in a year (or, perhaps, ever), the main reason I signed up is because if I can finish just one page, I will get a new Aimee Stewart chart at the end of the year. Aimee is my favorite HAED artist, so it just seemed like a fun way to get one of her charts. If I could finish six pages, I would get all 12 of the exclusive SAL charts, and if I finish the whole piece, I could also choose one of three exclusive charts (though none of these appeals to me, so I feel no pressure to finish). There are also free milestone charts for reaching participant goals of 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 by December 14; so far, we've already reached over 1000, so we will all get this chart:

Fairytale was my pick, as I just thought it was really pretty and looked like it would be easier to see progress and stay motivated to work on it:

It's nice that they show you the page layout, so you can see how much you'll have to do to reach the goals:

I went through my stash and found fabric and all but one of the floss colors, so it basically cost me nothing to kit up, which is a nice bonus!

So that's one goal already set for next year, to finish a minimum of one page--I think I can do it! 😅

I ended up getting a reply to my question about the Nora Corbett model late last week and was able to complete the first of two models on Friday, and I just received an approval this morning, so it's good to go. I've already made pretty good progress on the second one, so I should be able to finish it within the next couple of weeks if all goes well. I might try to do that before I work on finishing my friend's ornament, unless that suddenly appeals to me more.

I also forgot to share that I was able to buy a couple of Nora's concept paintings for her Seven Seas Mermaids at the Mirabilia retreat. While I have quite a few of her pieces, these are the first I've gotten that were turned into designs, so I was excited about that. The two I bought were North Pacific Mermaid (which should have been South Pacific Mermaid), for which I stitched the model:

And Indian Ocean Mermaid:

It's interesting to me that one design ended up almost the same as the original painting, and one ended up pretty different. I'm going to stitch North Pacific again for myself, then I'll be able to hang the paintings next to the stitched pieces, which I am looking forward to seeing.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!