Progress on projects

I made some progress on my projects this weekend. I got some good uninterrupted time in the stitching chair on Saturday, and got this far on the smocking. The purple is irises, and I still have to add the stems, but that is only about 5 minutes of work. Then the assembly.



C discovered this on my stitchy chair and was asking her mom about it. I haven't had a chance to tell her yet that the yellow one is for her dolls.

Here's my current temari. It is taking fully as long as I was expecting, but is not turning out as drop dead gorgeous as I was hoping. I think there are two problems: the colors are too close together, so the flowers are tending to run together visually, and the color changes in the rayon thread, so beautiful in the individual flower, are keeping it from showing up as one unit when these flowers start bunching together.



There is still a long way to go. It may get better. You see a pin in the surface. That is marking an incomplete flower so I can find it back when I go back to stitching with that color.

I got some good chair time on Sunday too, on my advent calendar. I'm working on square #17, which means I'm about 2/3rds done. Doing the math, however, means I still won't get it done for this Christmas. I usually work on it on Sunday at church when I'm there during DH's Praise Team practice. C is usually along and helps a lot. She calls it "our" project. Her main job is telling me what to stitch next. (We don't like people without their faces stitched.)