America - 250 Progress

 I will try to do my best to not overload the posts with this project but I'm really excited that I may be able to get this one AND A Worthy Patriot stitched before July 4.

Before I start with the good news, I should tell you what happened last night. It isn't the end of the world but I was frustrated. I don't have the called for floss so I found this one and it was already on a frame. That saved me a good bit of time . . almost! I think the piece of linen was something like 18" x 26". I had it loaded on the frame with the 18" side being the width. I had my floss and the chart out and I thought . . I'd better check this to make sure it's right. Nope.

The linen needed to be 19" wide by 12" deep. This piece has been on the frame for a while. I wasn't sure if I had pulled a thread along the sides to make sure it was straight. I only had about 1-1/2" extra on each side and if it wasn't straight, I could have been in trouble. I had no other empty frames and this frame was 19". That would have been too close so I took linen off a longer frame, trimmed about 3" off one vertical side of the linen and sewed it onto the leader and onto the frame.

I had been working in the sewing room on the linen getting it folded and in the boxes so the room was a mess - more of a mess than normal. The sewing machine chair was full of stuff. There was a big pile on top of the sewing machine and there is zero light in that end of the room. I brought in a big flashlight, took everything out of the chair, off the sewing machine and off the cutting table, sat it all on the floor, got this done. I probably make it sound way worse than it was but it was all happening about midnight and I was tired.

So . . I couldn't wait to start so I sat down and made about 64 stitches. Today I made 650 stitches. That could be a record. I'm 3.02% done with this project.

My goal is to finish this one in mid-April, then work on A Worthy Patriot the rest of April, May and June and have them both framed and on the wall for July 4. We'll see. There will be days when I probably won't get any stitching done - we each have medical procedures (routine stiff mostly) and a couple of trips to Kansas City. I don't stitch on 40 count linen when I'm with Debbie so no stitching on this on Wednesdays.

All I can do is give it my best shot and if I don't have it finished by Independence Day, I should have it done soon thereafter.

What I'm trying to do is work over to the left side. With the dogs' decisions to sit on my lap, I'm not able to use the lap stand. Using the Lowery, it's kinda hard to be able to reach the left side because of the tight spot where I'm stitching so if I can sit on the bed and stitch using the lap stand, that will work. Any time I put them in bed, they go under the covers and go to sleep. If I could get a couple of hours each day stitching like that, it would help me a lot! Isn't it crazy how the dogs rule my life?  :)