Sinus Headaches and Stitching Don't Mix

... so I have very little to report in the way of stitching progress.  Wednesday and Thursday were total losses so far as stitching was concerned.

 But by Friday I had recovered just enough to work on my Purple Peacocks, which I had stitched on an aqua background in GAST Peacock rather than in the recommended shade of purple.  I actually believed I had finished the piece until I saw this photograph and noticed that I have a few flourishes to finish on the tail of the peacock on the upper right.    That sinus headache did a number on my powers of concentration and observation!  And then I will have to decide whether I am going to finish it as a small pillow or a gift tote.  I have abandoned the idea of a biscornu ... it is too large for a biscornu pin cushion and too small for a biscornu pillow.

And I have finally resumed work on TW's The Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking and made some progress on Page 8 of the chart.  The photo isn't one of my better ones, being slightly askew.  And it is often hard to appreciate a TW design until after the back stitching has been done but I am pleased with this morning's progress. It is moderately slow going since, typical of TW, the snow has so many varying shades but the final result will be well worth it.  TW has a painterly eye which she applies to cross stitch design with phenomenal results.  It is one of the reasons I love her designs and keep returning to them again and again.  There are other reasons, to be sure. Her choice of subjects meshes with my own interests in fantasy subjects like dragons and mythological/fairy tale figures and in designs with the feel of medieval tapestries.  Her palette has a delicacy and subtlety not found in many cross stitch designs.  Her designs are breathtakingly romantic in the truest sense of that word.  And she uses DMC in her charts which keeps even large projects affordable ... though one of these days I am going to try and convert one of her smaller designs to silks ... I am sure TW would look mah-velous in silk.  There is one old complimentary chart of a dragon [I believe it is called Futurecaster] that is designed to use an over-dyed cotton and some matching solids in a colorway of the stitcher's choice that should convert to silk easily enough.  Converting one of her blended thread charts to silk would be more difficult but if I could find something relatively small I might give it a try using Perfect Palette silks.   That line of silks has a large range of colors ... not quite as extensive as DMC's range of cottons but close.  Anyway, I have quite a collection of TW charts in my stash since I have two of her seasonal faeries left to stitch [Summer and Winter] and I have the large paperback book The Best of Teresa Wentzler Fantasy as well.  And I have a number of her complimentary charts as well - TW is one of those designers who has been exceedingly generous with free designs over the years.

Now that I have recovered a bit of momentum on this project, I am reluctant to put it down.  This is not unusual for me when working with a TW project.  It happened with Tracery Dragons earlier in the year.  I tend to reach a point in a TW project where I just have to abandon all other stitching to concentrate solely and completely on the TW piece until it is finished.