I'm being good (but it's hard!)

For the past week or so I have really been feeling the urge to either make a new start (those Market goodies are calling to me!) or at least pull out a different WIP to work on, but I have resisted, which is absolutely new for me! I think it will take three more weekends to finish the Vervaco mini SAL, which currently looks like this:

Once it's finished I'll decide whether to pull out a WIP or make a new start to be my weekend project for a while.

I'm hoping to finish up the first of the two Nora Corbett models this week, so I will get to have a new start soon with the second one; it should go more quickly than the first one, as it has less stitching, so I'm hoping to be able to send them back by the end of next month.

Speaking of models, Mr. Darby's House (part of the Holiday Village series) was released n the 15th, so I can share a picture now:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

I cheated, but just a little

I worked on the Vervaco mini secret SAL this past weekend and almost finished the vase on the top shelf. It only needed a couple more hours of work to complete the greenery, so I cheated a bit and finished it this morning:

Those pink flowers were charted to be the same as the other batch of yellow ones, but I had some nice pinks in my floss box for another design so I decided to add a bit more color to this piece and I'm really happy with the result.

I actually would have finished this last night except that I spent a couple of hours on Saturday driving up to my LNS for a Nashville Market show. There were quite a few designs that caught my eye this time; I had already placed an order for several items, and then picked up just a few more at the shop. I love the Meow and Woof blocks by Hands on Design, so I pre-ordered those, and I like the Scary Apothecary series but I was really trying to resist them--until I got to the shop and saw them in person and just had to have them!

As I love Halloween stitching I also picked up new ones from Praiseworthy Stitches and Glendon Place; GP's Phantom Plantation is now my favorite of Cheryl's haunted houses so far:

Those cute little buttons are from Puntini Puntini; not sure what I'll use them for yet, but I know I'll find the perfect project at some point.

Also got a couple of Ink Circle charts that looked like they would be fun to play around with using various color combos, and a sweet little design by Blackberry Lane Designs:

Finally, I had pre-ordered a couple of the new PTP fabrics and they actually showed up that day, which was lucky. These are Demoiselle and Memory on Belfast and opal Belfast:

I can see Demoiselle becoming one of my new PTP favorites, as it would look good with a lot of Mirabilia designs, especially the fairies--I might have to dig Adia out one of these days...

As for my Enchanted Alphabet, I went with option #3. I almost chose the first one, with the deep purple mat, and even wrote the email with that choice, but the more I looked at it the more I thought it would draw too much attention towards the little girl and away from the letters. I think the third option will bring forth the letters a bit more, as it pulls the colors from them really nicely. Honestly, with Jill and Amber working on this I don't think there is any such thing as a bad choice.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Past the halfway point

Unbelievably, I am still sticking with my plan to work on the Vervaco mini SAL only on the weekends; it's been five weekends now, so that must be a record for me! I didn't post last Monday, but here is how it looked then, with the sleeping kitten complete and a vague outline of a third cat:

And as of last night, with another adorable kitty completed:

I'm thinking it will take another four weekends to finish, though if I'm fairly close to being done on a Sunday I might just keep going into the week to finish it.

Last month I took a day to clean up my craft room; my stitching table was slowly getting buried under a pile of finished pieces, WIPs in Qsnaps and patterns, floss boxes and rings of overdyed flosses for the various projects. One of the finishes was Enchanted Alphabet, which I ironed and then finally sent off to the amazing Jill Rensel for framing. I was so excited when Amber emailed with some choices for the frame and mats! Here are the options she sent, in the order they were in the email:

#1:

#2:

#3:

I was initially drawn to one of these, but as I was typing my reply to her email I started to change my mind, and ended up with a different choice. I'm curious what others would choose, so I'd love it if you would comment and let me know which one you would pick; I'll share my final choice next week.

So now the waiting starts to receive a photo when Jill and Amber are done with it, which probably won't be until sometime in May at the earliest (and more likely June) as they get so many pieces. They will be doing some painting on the mats, which I leave entirely up to them; all I told them was that as I stitched it I was thinking that it looked like the letters were flowers growing in her garden, so I'm excited to see what they come up with.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!