Bittersweet finish

I finished Amy Bruecken's Warm Wooly Welcomes last Friday night, and while it has some very sad memories attached to it, I still really love it. The adorable sheep and bright, happy colors really appeal to me, and even the back stitching was fun because it brought each design to life. Here are the final progress photos and the big finish:

I took the final photo under my OttLite, so the fabric color is pretty true in it; it was a piece of Belfast from Nicholas Flamel Designs in his Fragrant Lilac Collection. There were two pieces in the set, and I used the other piece for Amy's A Little Batty SAL:

I think purple lends itself well to designs with bright, primary colors as it seems to mesh with any of them. I'm going to send the sheep to Rensel Studio to be framed, since they did such an amazing job with Batty, and since they take over a year to get to a project, by the time I get it back from them the worst of the sadness should be past and the happy should come to the forefront again.

I recently went on a bit of a spree and picked up five of Amy's SALs that I didn't already have (I've had Lucky 13 for quite a while now), so once I get some other stitching done, I'll have the pleasure of choosing which one to work on next. I'm leaning towards Lucky 13, and I have a piece of PTP Crystal DaVinci (purple, of course!) that might work really well for it.

Murphy's movement has been improving, but he's still on a pain med and a muscle relaxer for a few more days, so I don't want him trying to go up and down the stairs to my craft room because the meds make him a bit woozy for a few hours after he takes them. So, since I'm still "stitchin' in the kitchen" I pulled out Heart in Hand's More Any Town Tiny Town yesterday and worked on it for a while. I had started this last May at the same time I started Warm Wooly Welcomes with the intention of switching between the two, but I loved the sheep so much that I just stayed with that one. I had stitched just the cloud back then, and here it is as of last night:

Last year I was almost caught up with all of the Tiny Towns, but now I am woefully behind. I have both of the Any Towns to do, as well as Thankful, and Nativity Tiny Town is being released at Market very soon. Cecilia has also released Frills for the Christmas and Big Hearted towns, and a Frill for Blooming is also coming out at Market; this means that I want to stitch all three of those again so I can add the Frills to each one, so I now have seven to do to get caught up again!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!