Seventy Six Trombones Led the Big Parade ...

 Actually, It's seventy six Queen Stitches making up the Strawberry motifs in the English Band Sampler ... but I certainly feel like staging a parade to celebrate their completion.  Now don't get me wrong, I like Queen Stitches quite a lot.  They are intricate without being particularly difficult and they are quite attractive.  But seventy six is a bit much even for me.  I was curious and I timed this particular bit of stitching.  It took me 4 hours 48 minutes and 30 seconds to complete all 76 Queen Stitches ... one two hour sitting and one ... well, you can do the math.

 The photo above shows the third row of Part I, now complete while the photo to the right is a close-up of the strawberries.  This second photo is truer so far as actual color goes: the strawberries were stitched using DMC 350, 351, 352 and 353; the caps are DMC 3011.  And the photo below is a slightly out-of-focus close-up of a single strawberry.  Clearly, I am not the best photographer on the planet but I wanted to give you some sense of the strawberry's construction: first a row of 4 Queen Stitches, followed by a row of 5, then another row of 4, then rows of 3, 2 and 1 as it tapers to a point.

I have started on Part II from the SANQ Summer 2012 issue.  The first row of Part II involves some cross stitch and lots and lots of satin stitch.  It ought to very relaxing.  Satin stitch will be perfect for what I have to do tomorrow: sitting in an auto dealership waiting room as my Hyundai is inspected and has its regularly scheduled maintenance.  I plan to do as much of the cross stitch as I can today and save the satin stitching  fill for the waiting room tomorrow.

The nice thing about today's stitching is that, with it, I have now met all my July stitching goals.