Verandas of South Battery

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For some reason my camera didn’t do a very good job of photographing this piece. The house to the left of the palm tree is complete, but the stitches don’t show up very well.

I have enjoyed stitching the house and the palm tree and can’t wait to come back to work on it. A small amount of time seems to yield a large amount of stitched area, which makes it seem that it won’t take long before the piece is completed. It is gratifying to see the house take shape with so little effort.

After I decided that using antique white fabric for Verandas of South Battery was a mistake, I bought a new piece of thirty-two count platinum Lugana that I could use. Rather than waiting for this design to come back through my rotation, I decided to start it once again so that I could make up for lost time. If I could work on it for twenty hours, then all would be as if the little white-fabric mistake had never happened in the first place.

Unfortunately, I learned that I am a creature of habit. Ten hours of work made stitching this design a chore. I found myself longing for the time when I would be able to start working on the next piece in my rotation. I avoided working on the tree with splotches of greens and pinks. It didn’t take long for me to realize that ten extra hours of work would not me possible. I compromised with myself by working for fifteen hours now and fifteen hours on the next rotation. At that time I will be all caught up with a minimal amount of pain involved.

Stitching the same area twice turned out to not be the big chore that I had originally anticipated. Now almost all of the same stitches have been completed and I can go on to bigger and better things. I can’t wait for the first house to actually take shape.

I enjoyed working on Verandas of South Battery. Stitching seems to go so much more quickly because the colors are in big blocks that are easily stitched without constant reference to the chart. However, I have realized that I have made a devastating mistake–one that will not be easily fixed. As I started stitching on the first white house, I realized that all of the white houses and stitching is going to fade into the background of the antique white fabric that I chose to use. I have come to the conclusion that my only recourse is to get a different colored fabric and start over. Luckily, since I have enjoyed stitching this so much that starting over shouldn’t be too much of a burden. Until I can buy some fabric, I am going to move on to the next piece in my rotation.

I have been itching to start this piece for years. I decided that the time had come when I hit the end of my rotation. I am glad that I started working on this. It will eventually be a picture of five houses spanning a block of a road. The finished piece will be huge.

In spite of the size, I found that stitching this design is a pleasure. Most of the colors are in big blocks, which make it easy to stitch without constant glances at the chart. As a result, it feels like I have stitched more area than I usually do in ten hours. Observant people will be able to see where the first house begins. I can’t wait to start on it when this project comes back around in the rotation.