Very slow progress

Well, it finally happened. No, not that! After over a month of many hours of stitching each day, my carpal tunnel and/or the pinched nerve in my neck has flared up, so I've had to resort to actually reading the book I brought to the hospital. My right hand bothers me if I do much else, even writing the thank you notes I need to write! I'm surprised to find that typing does not seem to be bothering me much, though!

Before it became apparent that my hands were getting much worse, I was able to work on a bit more of the background of Celebration Santa. I also stitched a base layer of encroaching gobelin on Santa's tree. Thanks to Jane for suggesting I do this before stitching an upper layer of longer stitches with random long stitches to simulate the tree's needles! Now I don't need to worry about having these long stitches cover all of the canvas. I will be finishing the background around the tree before adding this second layer, so the tree needles may extend a bit over the background stitches.

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Pregnancy ticker: 34 weeks, 5 days.
I've been taking longer and longer walks around the hospital over the past few days, trying to build up my stamina. If this also triggers a few contractions, all the better, so we can minimize the medications that will be needed when they induce labor on Friday.

Stay tuned! The next post will likely be submitted by DH this weekend with news of BJ!

Happy Dance: Examplar IV

After the trellis motif took so long, I never imagined I'd be completely done with Catherine Theron's Examplar IV by this time!

The strawberry motif worked up fairly quickly. The leaves are all done in detached buttonhole with return. The stem uses long arm cross, diagonal cross, and colonial knots, and the strawberry itself is in tent stitch over 1 with occasional cross stitches for the seeds.

The caterpillar (who seems to be heading for that strawberry!) is also done in tent stitch, and the crown in the lower right corner is in rice stitch.

After these, all that remained were the corner motifs in double-running and diagonal queen stitches, and the personalization.

Catherine had the great idea of personalizing her sampler with both start and end dates. I wanted to do the same, but also wanted to add a bit more detail. After a bit of thought, I ended up with "2007 Mid-Eastern Region EGA" to commemorate the seminar at which I took the class. The "SMH" in "SMH 2009" stands for Strong Memorial Hospital, not that I'll readily forget where and when this piece was finished!

As of tomorrow, I'll once again be working on Joan Thomasson's Celebration Santa, which DH brought in today!

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Pregnancy ticker: 34 weeks, 1 day.
Less than 1 week to go!

Celebration Santa

A few weeks ago, I told the story of winning the opportunity basket at the holiday party of my EGA chapter. Shortly thereafter, I felt like getting into the spirit of the holidays by stitching something seasonal, and realized that despite my pile of (close to 40) WIPs, I didn't have a single Christmas/winter project! What's a girl to do?

Yup. I did it. I started something from my basket. Specifically, I started the Celebration Santa by Joan Thomasson. This canvas came with the stitch guide and the threads, so I didn't have to do any prep work. I started the face on December 4th, at the LNS "open stitch". Santa stayed home while I was in the hospital (though I did have a small project there, of course). Since I've been home, I've been celebrating the holidays the only way I can - by working on Santa while watching Christmas movies on TV.

I've long admired Joan's Santa and angel designs. Her stitch selections are wonderful! I've never done one before, though, because I really don't like the way her characters' eyes are depicted. I decided that my Santa needed a bit more personality in his eyes than just the slash of black.

I started by filling the entire face with tent stitch in pink (for the cheeks) and flesh tones (for everything else), stitching right over the black eyes and the eyebrows. I went back with a single ply of floss, and with a sharp needle, satin stitched the eyes with white. A french knot in blue-gray silk made up the irises. The white blended in a bit too much, so I outlined the top of the eyes with a single strand of brown floss. I used the same brown to sketch a nose. Bullion stitches in white floss worked well for eyebrows.

After the face, I moved on to the sleeves, following the suggestions in the stitch guide. I still need to go back and add fold lines, but I really like the richness of the sleeves.

I've since been working on the toys, but those will be featured in tomorrow's post!

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Pregnancy Ticker: 28 weeks, 2 days.
Regarding bedrest: In my case, "bedrest" only means staying off of my feet as much as possible. With medical permission, I am able to shower each morning before heading downstairs, where I occasionally move (slowly) between my stitching nest and the sofa. Fortunately, I don't actually have to prop myself up in bed to stitch!