Up to my old tricks...

Went into the office to do bill paying, and of course, I slipped over to the shop for supplies for my santa...he is eating up the pearl cottons like crazy, but his potential is going to be amazing (hopefully).  I went online to order his beard material...hopefully it will be usable when it arrives, but since I haven't worked with it before not sure what I've gotten myself in for.  But the vision in my head is amazing(and we all know that often that vision isn't quite realized- but at the beginning stages I'm always feeling confident).  Before I even shopped for the santa supplies though I got distracted by the new charts, particularly Erica Michaels "Stingy Jack & Friends."  I realize many of you aren't as thrilled with Halloween stitching as I am, so you may not find this as exciting, but right now this is high on my list of things I've got to do.  (it would be very helpful if my vision and my reality would meet up and fight it out, because my vision picks out too many things my reality can't get done.)  Anyway, after working on my challenge piece for 3 days (and I'm still not off the ship...WTH is the matter with me?), I decided to pick out a quick stitch just so I don't get too depressed without having a finish this week.  I know I talked about August's theme models before, but I got hung up on an October piece and decided to just stitch it.  My vision here was to stitch it exactly as shown....

My first stop in getting this done was to go to the shop, as I had very specific ideas of what to use.  While Heart in Hand used 32 ct. Vintage Autumn Field linen,  I wanted to use Winter Brew which is a white with grey, perfect for an all black project.  I picked up the black scalloped metal tray,  which I had envisioned using with this design but that's where the first turn in my thinking happened.  I was looking through the fabric cuts bin and found a gorgeous PTP overdyed green fabric, so I picked that up along with various other fabrics in the white or off white family.  I never did look for Winter Brew because I was being overwhelmed with color choices.  The 32 ct. is perfect for the metal tray I picked out so I started the project.  I did well, things were going smoothly, but I began to have stinking thinking about the color.  First instead of going with white or off white,( remember my vision) I kept going back to the green from PTP, Pampas.  So I finally decided that this design would work in a different way with the fabric so I stopped obsessing and started stitching.   After stitching the 2nd row of the alphabet my mind started wandering...never a good thing, and that's when I hit upon the idea of adding color in on the vine, including the leaves and flower buds.  The entire time I'm remembering how much I loved the piece just done with black, but I couldn't help myself and pulled out WDW Tobacco Road, vines, Moss, leaves, then of course I had to color the pumpkin and chose Persimmon for the pumpkin.  After stitching the flowers on the vine with carrot (originally had that out for a possible pumpkin color and was to lazy to look for any other color),  but in the end I took them out and restitched with CC Ye Old Gold.  And of course, I stitched the Smyrna Crosses and decided without stitching the entire thing in black, I needed to rethink those and decided to stitch the leaves in their place.    This was a fun stitch and while I should have finished it in a couple of days, I kept getting distracted by the changes I kept making.  Here is the end result....the tray comes in many colors and the bottom is 5" x 5" so there are a lot of designs for that size and this is the perfect stitching accessory especially if you take the time to stitch and finish a little fob, a needlebook and a pincushion.  But I did use it as a stitching tray holding the supplies for the piece itself.  Anyway, now I'm back to the Santa and the Shores of Hawk Run Hollow (I'm going to finish that ship if it kills me.)

While Jen and I have changed the challenge end date to 2020, we do have to show progress so my challenge now is I have to have the first 2 rows completely done before Jamboree.  And now if I do not, I'm paying Jen the $25.00.  I'm hoping that thought will kick my cheap side into gear.  (but I can't promise that...this is the year I may have to pay.)  Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer.  It's hotter than hell down here, but I noticed that it's hotter almost everywhere else.  Thank God we are living so close (any closer and we'd be in it) to the Atlantic Ocean.  Of course when northeasters are coming or hurricanes are in the forecast I sometimes wonder about moving inland, but at this point I'm here for life.  I've ridden everyone of them out here so don't see myself leaving for any reason.  Have a great weekend and I'll try to give you an update on my santa.  So much fun!