Sleepy Hollow is FINALLY finished

A little over 8 years ago, I started this project.  I never dreamed it would take so long in the beginning, I never dreamed it would end in the end.  LOL.  But I put the floss away and took the picture and I have the finish!

I do have a few notes for anyone thinking of stitching it.  Take the leap of faith and invest in a teal hand-dyed.  You will need 2 fat halves. Don't go lighter or more purple blue. The color makes it look stormy and spooky and the oranges and greys will pop. Maybe choose a darker grey, if you can't do the teal.  But I love this Loch. This is my go-to Halloween fabric now.

You will need more than one skein of London Fog. Which is a pity because it is the ugliest color Weeks ever made and you will probably never find another project that will ever use it. You could sub out for CC Bunny Honey or GAST Woodsmoke, but toss that against the other colors and your fabric to see how it works.

So that is that.  I love this project. I keep imagining how it will look finished as a stand up. I think awesome, right?  Now to find the fabric!

Sooo close

I am two rows, maybe 20 stitches all together, from being done with the stitching on the trees on that center section of Sleepy Hollow. After that, I just have the backstitching on the angel's wings and a couple random stitches and that center section is DONE! I am doing the side sections too, but I can not foresee them taking almost three years, like this part did.

One good thing that's come of this that I hadn't considered is that I finally know what kind of linen I like to work on. Cashel! Linen and I have a running battle. I like the look, but hate that I always end up buying linen that has a really open weave. The threads show through from the back, and the fabric just feels thin and scanty. I have bought quite a lot over the years as part of my LNS's pre-packaged cuts, and it irritates the crap out of me to come on it when I open the package--maybe this is why I always lean more to evenweave and aida. You know what you're getting, and they're sturdy! But I realized at the GTG that this Cashel is denser and I like working on it.

I'm hopeful this is true of all Cashels. If it is, I am using it from now on.


Updated: I finished the stitching on the trees! Just the backstitch to do and that confetti stitching and it can go on the sidebar here as a finish, and the stitched piece put in the "to be finished" box! Woo hoo.

Something came a hoppin' to my house . . .

and it wasn't the bunny.

The frog came a visit to me last night. I didn't count the border right on the bunny and it was one off. Only . . . I had to pick out all the checkerboard border on the right hand side as well as half the bottom border. I could have screamed. By the time I unpicked everything and fixed it, I could have screamed. Needless to say, Christmas Carrot did not get finished last night. Maybe today . . .

The final update

This is as far as I got yesterday. really not as far as I wanted, but I think I set rather too grand goals. I did enjoy what I got to do. I'm a bit worried about Ichabod's eye, he looks a bit bug-eyed with three wraps of the needle, but two was not nearly good enough coverage. And I guess, too, if I were being chased by a headless horseman holding a flaming death pumpkin, my eyes would be a bit buggish as well.

This is definitely in my stitching rotation now. I think, once I get the tombstone road thing done, it will be a much faster stitch. Have you noticed that Cricket Collection charts don't look as detailed as they usually end up being? They're beautiful, they just aren't simple. And this is a big project. I was thinking that it ranks up there as definitely one of the big ones in my portfolio of work.

6PM update

It's close to 6PM, which means the children will start coming soon. So I wanted to post an update on this. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. It was a busy day--HTB wanted to go on a bike ride, truly terrifying in our hilly neighborhood, I had to go to the store, and I cooked supper, including apple crisp, which we'll have after 9PM. At least Ichabod has a head now--this has been more like a headless horse race for a while. Now to work on Gunpowder

Have a BOOOTIFUL day!

(edited to fix, because I have an issue with fast fingers)

Good morning! Happy Halloween if you celebrate that! Blessed Samhain if you celebrate that! Happy Fall if you don't!

We carved our pumpkin last night. It was pretty fun. Our pumpkin was 37 pounds, and needed an awesome carving. I found a book of templates at Walmart last night along with carving tools, so we went that route. I haven't carved a pumpkin in 15 years, HTB hasn't in 30 years. We decided to go with two carvings on it. It really is a lantern! The pittybulls helped us by eating the pieces of pumpkin that fell on the floor. And by wagging their encouragement!

His side. See the orbs on the right?


My side. This black cat fetish I have is getting a bit out of hand.




And my project for the day for my October 31st SAL. If anyone is interested, please participate! It will be fun!




OK, I have to run, I'm off to start work on this WIP.

Making MASSIVE progress on my Sleepy Hollow

I have made great strides on this chart this weekend. I took it to work with me on Saturday, and I worked on the little flaming pumpkin of death in between performances. My boss is OK with it; he plays online games when we're not busy, and he remembers how, when I was interning there, we couldn't do anything and just had to stare out across the road while we were waiting for people to show up to the plays. The other guy I work with was really interested in it, but he thought that I was looking at the picture and picking it off. The box office is not the best place to work on this, though, but I've had more time there than anywhere else this week.

I realized on the way home that I had worked a 56 hour week this week, so I decided yesterday that all I was going to do was stitch. And I did. I wasn't out of my jammies til 5 last night, and I just laid on the couch and worked on this. I did stop to double check my alignment because I didn't want that to be messed up. But it worked up pretty quick.

This chart is not hard. It looks much more difficult than it is. I love how it's looking. This should be so fun to finish

And I heard from my finisher this morning. she found snowman print flannel. There weren't many snowflake prints to choose from, but this should work. I just want this finished. That will be one more fair entry ready to go for next year. I am starting to think I won't have a lot of things ready for the fair. I realize that is silly at this point, since the fair is what, 9 months from now? But this isn't like photography, you don't just whip a bunch of pics out in 6 days.

Anyway, that is for another day's worrying. Today I am just gonna admire my own work.

Picked up Sleepy Hollow again

I worked on the turkey tabletopper ALL night last night. I managed to finish the turkey, the pilgrim hat, all the interior border, the little basket of . . .something . . . underneath the turkey, and the blob in the corner that I think is Plymouth Rock. I am not sure. I can't even say it's a quarter way finished because I haven't done the Mayflower yet, but it's getting there.

That said, I couldn't work on it anymore for the week. I pulled out Sleepy Hollow this morning and worked on that. It's my lunch project as well. I must confess, I REALLY like that fabric. I know . . . "Will ya post a picture so we can see what you're talking about, ninny?" Yes, I will post one tonight. I promise. It's kinda embarrassing that I only have a little bit stitched, about half the Headless Horseman's steed, but it's going quite well. I can not wait to see what this shapes into.

Ahhh, I got to work on Sleepy Hollow

Have you ever had that project that beckons to you while you are working on other things? And you want to work on it, but can't? That is how Sleepy Hollow has been. I could not work on it because I was finishing the turkeys, and then I started Mom's tabletopper. Well, last night, I worked on MY project at home.

I did start my part-time job. I like it so far. It's a lot different from when I was there before, but I'm a lot different from how I was back then. We got everything done by 8:30, so I was home by 9. And I got to stitch for two whole hours. Pure bliss, I tell you, pure bliss.

Everyone seems to like this project. I am having fun so far. I am working on the Headless Horseman's horse. It's going OK. It's a lot of black, which normally annoys me like crazy, but so far this is not bad. The only bummer is that I thought there were blending filaments that would make things glow in the dark. There are, but none are clear or white. So I may not get to have my glow-y picture. But that's alright. I can tell this is the kind of project that is an accomplishment, even if it's simple, and I can not wait to work on it tonight.

I am in an afghan stitchalong on 123 now. We start tomorrow. I need some support or I will NEVER get that afghan finished. I decided that, until I get some q snap covers big enough to hold the rest of the afghan, I am going to keep it in the pillowcases like they recommend in the magazine. I bought some cheap pillowcases at K-mart--BTW, call me a snob, but I bought a set of sheets at the same time I bought the cases, and those sheets SUCK. They aren't Martha Stewart, but they are really rough-- and pinned it in there. Hopefully this will keep it cleaner than it had been. In case you haven't figured it out, I am not a fanatic about keeping everything really clean, but Robbie and the cats have been lying on the afghan or jumping on it to get my attention, and I am starting to realize that I can't handle that happening for the next however many years it will take to do this.