The latest project

I started this cross stitch project at least 10 years ago.  I suspect the actual kit is much older - it's an American kit, and probably was brought over from the USA by my mum, who then passed it on to me.

When I started stitching this piece, I found the chart to be too small for easy reading.  At the time, I was in the fortunate position of having access to a photocopier that could do enlarging, so I created an enlarged version on multiple pieces of A3, sellotaped together.  But that is unwieldy, so my final option was to photocopy again a smaller part of the chart, and then use magnetic strips to help me see which line of the chart I am following.  The only problem with this is that it limits my stitching to an A4 sized section - which is why there is a very straight line at the bottom of the sky on the left - I now need to move on to the next section of chart.

I had done a reasonable amount of the right hand side before putting it to one side for some reason that I cannot now recall.  Since picking it up again, I've made lots of progress on the sky, which is much more complicated than it appears.  It is a mixture of 5 or 6 different blues, mixed on the canvas to give the appearance of the sky gradually graduating from darker at the top to lighter at the bottom.  Being the perfectionist that I am, I find it very difficult to ignore it if I make a small mistake.

Another really annoying part is those 2 reels of blending filament.  Every time I go to pick up something from my sewing table, I knock one of them, and they end up on the floor far more often than seems reasonable!

In other news, we're going to visit the Beth Chatto garden tomorrow - so you should get a much more interesting blip to look at!  And I've created a shopping list of plants and other garden stuff that we want to buy, so we'll probably come back with a few plants!