Belated Progress Reports

I know, it's not tomorrow. In fact, it's two days after tomorrow. I've really been meaning to join the Procrastinator's Club, but...

I confess I haven't been doing a great deal of stitching, being otherwise occupied with MS3, of which I am now on row 100 of Part Deux. It is going considerably faster, though, as I am not spending *nearly* the same amount of time frogging and tinking as I did the first time through. I'm getting good at 'reading' my knitting!

Back to the point - item the first, the hardanger piece. I have finished the Kloster blocks, and have only one pair of the satin stitch 'ships' to complete. Then it's time to switch to the #8 pearl, for the eyelets and the buttonhole border.
Here it is, without the annoying moire effect:



The "White Musings" band sampler. The first band is star stitch, done in all three fibers. The upright cross is in #8 Perle cotton, the wide saltire cross is 2 strands of DMC cotton floss, and the narrow saltire is fuzzy looking because it's fuzzy thread - Rainbow gallery 'Whisper', to be precise. All are white, and the fabric is 32 ct. Amsterdam Blue Lugana. The second band is the booooring three-sided "Two sided Italian" stitch, in the DMC cotton. It strikes me as being a great deal of unnecessary fussiness to do something that is indistinguishable from ordinary cross-stitch with backstitching on three sides. The band is completed with a second row of the same stitch done under the gaps in the first row. Very dull. The bands get better, though. Here it is:



I'd show you the Historic Countries start, but...

I should have paid more attention to the chart, as I made an incorrect assumption regarding the motif I started on, a grouping of three styleized flowers on one stem, with leaves. I assumed that the three flowers were identical, and that each flower was symmetrical. Wrong. So I frogged the whole mess, and once again have a blank piece of fabric. I would have worked on it today, but...

Yesterday, the post person delivered a nice envelope from Wooly Wonka Fibers, which contained 1400 yards of lace-weight 100% merino in the Tupelo Gold colorway (which is mostly spring green, with odd lengths of yellow and aqua in it. Gorgeous stuff! I put it on the swift and plomped down in front of the TV at 1:30 this afternoon. After I wound off the first couple of hundred yards, (by *hand*, I'll have you know, as I don't yet have a winder) it occurred to me that I hadn't taken a picture of it for you, so I took it off the swift, retwisted it into a skein, and took a picture of skein and ball. Then I put it back on the swift, and started back on winding the ball. And I wound, and wound, and wound, and stopped to fix a quick dinner (cube steak sandwich), and wound and wound and wound some more. I gave up part of the way through Letterman (but did catch Viggo the Handsome in his marvy VanDyke and Handlebar!), and still have maybe 200 yds to do. I must say, though, that after this marathon, a measley 400 yds of sock yarn is going to be childs' play. And to think I was dreading it!

I think I'd rather have my teeth drilled sans novocaine.