Season's End - an Update

Soccer is over!!! WooHoo!!!! Okay, both boys went out by losing their respective tournaments, but you know what? That's okay, as far as I am concerned. it's over!!! For a week. DH & Little Kid have tryouts next Tuesday, 5/26, the day we are driving back from KY. Guess we'll be leaving really early.... And the boys are out of school Friday - as soon as we know they are done with finals, we'll be picking them up early, on get on the road to KY for the holiday weekend. Which means I have 4 1/2 days to figure out what project(s) I'm taking with me - nothing that I can't work without my floor stand, and nothing too complicated or lots of parts - there's a 1yo in the house we're staying in, and that's why I took an 8 year hiatus from stitching....


Again, I have attempted to make these pics clickable for the original, zoomable ones....

On to last week's stitching! First, one thing that I don't have a picture for: Moonlit Orchid, the 2nd Patricia Ann Design I'm getting ready for our RR. I have almost the entire white-on-white border done, thanks to all the games this weekend. As soon as I finish the border, I'm going to wash it and call it done, and wait to see if Lavender gets done, and this one needs to go out in it's place :)

Next, my lunchtime project, TW's Medieval Miniature: between lunch last week & a department meeting conference call (most of which I can either not hear, or it doesn't apply to me at all), I have a good bit of the knight done. And for the record, I really hate backstitching over-1 on 28ct - my 28 needles are too fat, and if I had a short beading needle, I'd use that. Here's where I am so far:


I also got some work done on Lyne's wedding sampler. I took an overall picture, which shows all the wording and the two harts she had already completed. Then I also took a picture of just the area I worked (besides a tiny bit of fill-in on one of the hearts' flowers). This is actually not a bad stitch - once I get in the rhythm of the roses, they go pretty quick. Here's the overall:

And the detail shot is here:


And lastly, my main piece for the week was SQ Lady & Unicorn. My 3rd anniversary on this is next month, and I am finally closing in on getting the top row of pages completed!! I would really like to have them done during the next rotation, but I think it will take another month after that, as all that's left is confetti!! I don't think there's 10 stitches of the same color grouped anywhere on the remainder of this top row - I tried too hard to get through those this time around. So hopefully by the time the boys go back to school, I'll have finally scrolled down and started the next row! This time, I did well over 1000 stitches, and have well over 28000 done. In the detail & overall pictures, the black grid thread on the far right is the outside edge - that's all I have left! Here's the overall:


And then the detail of the last full & last partial page (orange grid thread marks pages):


Tonight, I get out MTM, and will try to get as much of Part 5 done as I can before we leave for the long holiday weekend. I know I can't take this with me - it's too much to even take were we going somewhere kid-free. I've been doing so good, getting a part done each time - but I think this will be my first 2-rotation part, as I am sure the 4 building sections will be, too :(

In other Chatelaine news, I signed up for the Desert Mandala, as my Mother's Day present. And now she's got one that is chock-full of beaded dragonflies, and fairies - though she has said she will offer a fairy alternative. I think that will be my birthday present to myself in November, as this one doesn't start until September. Since I'm collecting these damn Chatelaines like I used to collect TWs. In case you've missed it, you can see a preview here:
http://chatelainedesigns.yuku.com/topic/9511
Because If I'm going down, I'm taking some of you with me :) Happy stitching this week to everyone!!!