The canvas is rotated again.......I have finished Section 1 on the third side and just finished Section 2.  My progress has been slow the past couple of days as we are in the middle of a front yard re-landscape. 

In October 2007 we re-landscaped our front yard, new driveway, sidewalks, raised planter beds, concrete mow strip, sprinkler system, tropical plants and thick beautiful sod.  After a couple of months our yard never looked more beautiful.  Fast forward to 2015 and the fourth year of drought and our approved water usage was cut again.  Our sod could not survive on the reduced water so we made the difficult decision to stop watering it and let it die. 

The sod died however weeds sprouted up and made a patchy lawn.  We thought maybe this winter we would have enough water to keep the front lawn intact but that didn't happen so we had the lawn removed and will replace it with crushed stone.  Because of the time to deal with the contractor I have not been able to stitch as much as I would have liked so I don't really have anything to show at this time.

Hopefully tomorrow I can show my progress on the third side.  Oh on another note my Mystery Class kit arrived today.  Beautiful Vineyard silks, Watercolours and a whole variety of Rainbow Gallery threads.  I will post more about the Mystery Class when it begins and will show all the great threads.

Quadrant 2 is finished.......I spent some time this weekend and finished Sections 8, 9, 10 and 11.  Time to rotate the canvas again for the third side.

 

I got an email from Kathy that my Mystery Class kit has been shipped, can't wait to see all the different threads that will be used.

Quadrant 2 update.............Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 12 are finished, Sections 10 and 11 are started.  I decided to kinda work backwards this time stitching Section 12 then 11 then 10 then 9 then 8.  I want to see if the placement is easier than if I stitch them in numerical order.  The jury is still out so we will see.  Not much else to talk about on this update.

The canvas is rotated.........I rotated the canvas to start on the second quadrant and was able to finish Sections 1, 2 and 3.  Moving right along, hopefully the progress will be swift and we will be on to a new project.

This photo shows Sections 1, 2 and 3 completed and the next photo is of all the progress so far.

 

After Tangerine Twist is finished the Mystery Class should be just about to start so I will have two projects going at the same time.

The first quadrant is finished.......Comments so far?  Feel free to leave comments to let me know if this is boring or interesting or if you have questions.  Any and all comments are welcome, I can see that people are accessing the blog but don't know what you think. 

The first photo shows all of section 8 finished.

This photo shows an interesting stitch for Section 9.  There are two colors and it almost looks like the blue/purple color, African Violet, is laid over the magenta color.  The magenta color is a portion of African Sunset, you cut out the orangey tone.

 

Section 10 is also an interesting stitch and uses the orangey tones of African Sunset.  I really like the effect of this stitch.

 

This photo shows section 11 and 12 finished and really what the whole quadrant looks like.  There are places in the design that call for beads but I made a decision to not use beads and place stitches there instead.  Unless you look at the pattern you would never know where the beads belong.  One area that will require some thought is the Amadeus stitches, I need to fill in the empty area beneath those stitches. 

 

What's next, glad you asked.  I need to rotate the canvas and complete Section 1 on the next side.  I know all the excitement is gone now that you can see the whole quadrant but it will look different once the other sides are stitched.

 

I belong to the Shining Needle Society and have enrolled in Kathy Rees' mystery class that begins in April.  This class will last 5 months and we will receive instructions as we go but no photo of the finished piece, it's a mystery.  The snippets of the design Kathy has shared so far are interesting and I will of course document my progress on this blog.  I have not done a mystery class so this will be new and interesting for me.  The design was offered in many different color ways and I choose one called Prickly Pear which has lots of pale greens and rust.  The design uses quiet a few different threads so this is going to be fun.  More about the mystery class later.

 

 

Section 8 is finished.......This section has several designs going on.  First is the blue/purple stitch, then the  taupe zig zag followed by a multicolor zig zag and ending with orange tent stitches.   The blue/purple stitch and the multicolor zig zag are stitched with the same thread, the first part happened to all be the same color.  The taupe zig zag is Burnt Toast which is really a beautiful variegated thread.  As always my camera does not fully capture the true colors of the threads.

This photo is a close-up of a portion of section 8.

This photo just shows the progress of this quadrant.

Section 5, 6 and 7 is done........The chart shows section 4 then 6 and 7 with section 5 on another page so I stitched section 7 then 6 then 5.  Not sure if that is the correct order but it works.  Next will be section 8 which has several rows in that section.