Well, I suppose it's that time again to review the State of the Stitching for the beginning of Q3...

This quarter a lot and a little was accomplished. The big event that occurred during Q2 was CATS, where old and new faces gathered around the table at Pedro's on Friday night and enjoyed friendship, laughter and good food.

You should check here for my CATS post of a couple of months ago for what I acquired back then, and those happenings.

Now, onto the details:

Finished Items:
I broke my "only one model" promise to stitch Blackwork Acorns for PawPrints Cross Stitch. That turned out nicely, except I popped it in the post to them without taking a picture of it first. They promised to send along a pic, but I've not seen it yet.

I also managed to finish Two Spotted Ladybug for the Dimples Designs Round Robin that I'm part of. Butterfly Lace, a Christmas gift from... a friend, also made it into the finished pile. Yup, I made it to that finishing sprint that I said I would be in.

I also managed to finish a nametag for CATS as well.

Oh, I suppose I should mention that I also got all the supplies finally (I hate backorders) for framing the Wedding Sampler, and that got done and shipped off to my buddy in Washington state who is the author of the blog "And Now 4 Something Completely Different" (yes, we're both Monty Python fans). He's not written in that blog for a long while, but I think he's busy with a new house and his job. I'm sure he'll be back with something eventually. And for the record, he and his wonderful wife loved the sampler.

I'm just happy I can talk about it now in this blog without worrying that I'll slip and let him know what their present was.

Worked on WIPS
I spent some time with Guardian working on his border a little - just the inner straight line, and not any of the knotwork, but that was very early into the quarter and I abandoned him almost immediately.

I cheated. The individual who was keeping me on track for some stitching goals (and I was keeping her on her goals too, but we were both failing badly at that) gave me leeway to start Dracolair's "The Phoenix", which I was very excited to start after CATS. He's coming along nicely, but I put him aside to be able to work on one of the buggies for the RR. I have all the ash done for Phoenix, except for the Rainbow Gallery threads, and have started up into the wing. I said I would have probably 40% of him done by the end of the year, and I'd say I'm well on my way to achieving that.

I spent a little time with 'Above the Clouds' - the dragon's wings are filled out a little more, as are the clouds around the castle. If I pick him back up again, I may be doing so to finish him, but he's still got a ways to go - and he's one of my goals to finish this year, so it would be nice to actually achieve one of them.

When I was done with the bugs, I went back to Shimmering Mermaid. She's what I've spent the greatest amount of time on last quarter, when I wasn't working on other small things, and it shows. I have lots more of the purples in place, and am keeping a positive outlook that I may actually be able to finish her this year. It would be nice to have one large finish this year.

I worked up a small piece of my own design for my SS that isn't quite done... I'm not sure how long it will remain in that state either. I've tucked it away for now...

Non-worked on WIPS
That would be everything else that was left on my WIP list: Floral Bellpull, Desiderata, Celestial Dragon, Noah's Ark (for which I used to moderate the forum, but summarily resigned the post), Storyteller, and The Fortunate Traveller. I wish I could say that I even pulled them out to look at them this last quarter, but I didn't. They're probably ticked off at me, or the dragons in there have steamed up the baggies so that they can't see me when I walk into the closet and pull something else out.

So, there you have the current state of the stitching for Q2 progress, and the start of Q3. Hopefully at next quarter end I'll be telling you about a new model that I'll be working on, but I've not heard anything with regards to progress on that one yet, otherwise I'll be waxing more on Shimmering Mermaid and a couple of other bugs for the Dimples RR.

Until then, as always, Happy Stitching!