A Thank You, an Update and a Reveal

First of all I'd like to thank all you lovely ladies for the kind comments and well wishes re: my first solo excursion. It was a big hurdle for me and it's taken a long time to get to this point, so your kindness means a great deal. Knowing you're there "cheering me on" will help me go out on my own again and to start venturing further afield - so a BIG thank you to you all. :0)

When he heard DH was so pleased he took us out to the Malt Shovel that night for a celebration meal. I was boring and had the poached salmon in dill sauce again (it is rather good) :0)

Yesterday I felt a bit like I'd run a marathon so had a quiet day. After discovering it was reveal day for the JA Monthly Challenge I had a bit of an "Oh dear" moment ;0) and set to stitching the back of the piece and getting it ready for making up. Guess who thought reveal day wasn't until next week? Double Doh! In the evening I felt quite tired and didn't want to risk making a mistake on that or on Part 2 of Memories SAL so decided it was the turn of Night Watchman to grow a bit, as it's fairly straightforward to stitch:

Not huge progress but it's more of an "in between" project so am not in any rush to finish it.

As DH was up and out early, due to having to work today, and DS shot off a bit later to the monthly Farmers Market in Brigg with Alex, I decided it was the ideal time to tackle the Challenge finishing. It's the first time I've done a heart-shaped finish and it's nowhere near perfect in shape, but am pretty pleased with how it's turned out, more or less as I'd visualised it....... especially as it took me most of the flipping afternoon and several false starts/unpicks to finally decide how to sew the two halves together!

It was stitched 3 over 2.
On the back I stitched the bottom heart motif from the front (2 over 2) and added a cherub charm, then took the letters (mine and DH's initials) from a freebie chart here (1 over1) and the rose motif (1 over 1) from another freebie here. Thanks to those ladies for them. :0)

The fabric is Polstitches 28ct evenweave in Pearl; thread is Rajmahal art silk #379 and the chart is a freebie by Kristine Herber of Dragonfly Stitches. Many thanks for the chart Kris - it was lovely to stitch. :0)

I love the reveal and so enjoyed looking at all the pics of the pieces the other Challenge stitchers had done: so many pretty colours of fabric and thread and it's amazing to see how different the same design can look just by changing these. There were some interesting finishing techniques used too and quite a few I'd like to try out at some point.

The three freebie choices for next months Challenge are now up for voting. It's been made seriously hard this time around, as I love all of the designs and would like to stitch them all, but my vote has been cast. Can't wait to find out which one we'll be stitching. :0)

Well if I'm going to get any of Part 2 of Memories stitched today I'd better go and get on with it.

Hope you're all having a good weekend and thanks for taking the time to stop by. :0)