Further Progress

It feels good to be making progress on this floral motif band.  Not good in the sense of enjoying the activity, though.  Rather good in the sense of nearly being done with a distasteful chore that is a necessary prelude to a more enjoyable activity.  Though, I will admit that these motifs are a little less irritating the second time around.  Perhaps familiarity  breeds comfort rather than contempt.  And they do seem to stitch up more quickly the second time around as well.  As a whole, this sampler is really an interesting and enjoyable step outside my comfort zone: a lot of very bright colors, a surprising juxtaposition of unrelated motifs, a more British than American design aesthetic.

Just to give you some perspective, this is what the band looked like in my December 2nd Progress photo.

And here is where I stand after three weeks stitching solely on this project.  It was pretty slow going, with a fair amount of frogging at first.  But things sped up a bit once I got accustomed to the motifs.  I was surprised by the change in color on the star motifs on the right: everything else in the band is quite symmetrical.  I just need to complete the bottom points on the stars and then do all the back stitching and this band will be history.  But for now I'll be putting this aside till Christmas night.  I still have lots of last minute stuff to do for the holiday.  I won't have time to stitch till my guests for afternoon tea go home on Christmas Day.  So don't expect any more progress photos till 12/26.

Since I am on Christmas recess from December 23 through January 3, I am hopeful that there will be enough stitching time to complete The English Band Sampler by Dec. 31st, thereby meeting my 2013 goal of finishing two BAPs in the year.  If not, at least it will serve as a BAP finish early in 2014.