...Well, it’s that time again to update y’all with the state of my stitching since the last address. Sorry if you're looking for some in-depth commentary on my weekend or the state of affairs in the world as I view them - I'll be back with more of that stuff tomorrow probably.

Right now, we're talking stitching. I’ve made some good progress, and have left some other goals by the wayside. B actually finished something of her own in Q1 too.

I still have to finish the mat cuts and framing for that wedding sampler (no, I'm not including the link to the pic here) and get it off in the mail. The frame was backordered, and backordered, and backordered again, but I think it’s finally in transit to me now. It’s about time too. I really should have picked another frame, but the one I saw was THE FRAME.

I did manage to obtain the frame for a piece that DH’s Mom entrusted me with that badly needed a reframing job (well, I stole it off her wall because it was starting to sag, and it was a bad framing job to begin with). I’d have to say that I did a pretty darn good job with the frame and mat selection and with the job itself. I had to lace it twice because the first time came off crooked. Turns out, the piece was catawampus to begin with after the way it was framed the first time. I took good care of it, and it’s 99.8% straight – there’s just a slight lean on one side, but it’s not noticeable unless you look for it. Or unless you’re me and know exactly where it is because I framed it.

I’ve made an exception to the “no models but one I hope to get” rule for 2004. I decided to help out an LNS that I’ve helped out before by providing one small model. Unfortunately, they haven’t sent me the supplies yet for the job and it’s due in a month. Thankfully, it’s a small thing and I could probably get it done and back to them in about two weeks, but I don’t want those two weeks to be a rush deal. So an email went off, only to find that they *did* ship the supplies – they’ve not arrived yet. And I should have had the supplies early last week. This is not a good sign.

I don’t think that I’ve been helping my friend keep her 2004 stitching goals on track. In fact, we’ve not talked about them much lately. We haven’t talked much between ourselves lately either, other than the quick email here and there about other minor things. I haven’t kept up my ornament or two a month deal either. The Mill Hill kits are so quick to stitch up, but I haven’t worked on one since finishing the first one back in January. That's probably because I received (for Christmas) the Victoria Sampler cyberclass for Butterfly Garden, and was working on that - it's still not done, but once I pick it up again, I think I'll be in the finishing sprint for it - I just have to finish all the ribbon leaves and then do the stumpwork. Then it can sit in a drawer with DragonFly Lace until I get just the right shadowbox frames for them.

So, now that we’ve dispensed with some of the minor things, let’s recap the larger works I had in progress. I put some more work into Teresa Wentzler's The Guardian. The dragon is almost fully completed, sans backstitching, and I moved into the background and border wasteland (as you can see here). As I stated previously. I've had that as a WIP since May 2001. I put him down again a little while ago because I was getting tired of all that gold and green and needed some other colors in the spectrum in my range.

So I picked up Because Nice Matters. And finished it. I didn’t do all the scallops around the border because I decided I wanted to do a quick and simple frame. Which I didn’t order when I ordered the other frames. Nor did I remember to take a picture of it when I pulled out the camera. I have pictures that I need to post eventually of that piece because it was an anonymous gift, and I need to thank the person who sent it to me. Nice really does matter… I just hope that they still think that way about me.

After finishing that piece, I moved onto Mirabilia's Shimmering Mermaid. It's a really fun sparkly piece to work on, and I couldn't have chosen better than the Silkweaver Charizma fabric that my SS sent me (that I actually picked out myself in a conversation with my SS, who I didn't know was my SS at the time). I’ve made great progress with the piece since I last updated the State of the Stitching. The picture shows the fabric well, but not quite as pretty as it actually is... I’ve finished just about all of the floss stitching (except her upper body) and am just about ready to move into the metallics and beads. This puts me on a finishing track for her. I’ll have to make a note to order the frame for Because Nice Matters at the same time that I order the frame for this one. And I think this one will hang in A & B’s room – they’re in agreement with this too. But, since DH is the one that pounds the nails into the wall, I suspect that he may move the Seaside Kingdom into their room and leave Shimmering Mermaid at the top of the stairs.

And that’s fine with me. After all, he’s the one that took down a Disney concept drawing off the wall and hung Dragon Ride in its place. We still haven’t moved Dragon Ride from that perch either.

I’m part of a Dimples Designs Round Robin where we’re only working on the bugs that Terry designed. So I gathered the supplies and worked up ‘Queen of the Bumblebees’ for the person’s RR that I have. Got that done, and decided I needed to put something else up on the stand. I didn’t feel like working on Guardian anymore, but I knew I wanted to work on a TW.

So I dug around and picked up Above the Clouds, which has been languishing for some time. I’ve revisited a reservation I had about this dragon early on – that the blue colors are going to fade into the fabric, but I’ve constantly reassured myself that the backstitching and the surrounding colors will help resolve that issue. That and if he fades a little into the background after the surrounding colors and the backstitching is put in, I can always say that he’s camouflaged nicely. I’ve been stitching away at him for a few nights now, and he’s coming along quite nicely and quickly, even though the photo shows fabric to be lighter than it actually is.

I’ve not given any thought to Celestial Dragon so he's still in the same shape he's been in for a while. The same holds true for Floral Bellpull, which you can see here. Same is true for Noah's Ark and Storyteller. They can be viewed together The same stands true for Desiderata and The Fortunate Traveller as well. I think I’ve decided that Desiderata will stay on the bone lugana that its on, so that’s one less thing to think about.

The Fortunate Traveller… now that’s something to think a little more on. I’ve been feeling the pull to work on him again, and I’m thinking that after I’m finished with this round on Above the Clouds, I should pull Traveller out again and work on him. I think my poor Trav Draggie is feeling a little unloved.

So, this concludes the Q2 State of the Stitching Address. As you can tell, I’ve made a little progress, but not leaps and bounds. I expect that the Q3 Address will have more to talk about in terms of completion of pieces, some framing, and maybe (just maaaaaybeeeee) a new piece started.

Until then… happy stitching.