Home Study - Settling In

This week I settled in to my stitching on the Christmas banner. I wish I could say I had settled on which floor stand to use. During the week I kept the banner on the K's floor stand in my office. I remembered an old standing Ott Lite that I had hidden away from myself in a closet and brought that in to the office. The light makes a huge difference as the natural light this time of year in the office and my desk lamp just weren't doing it for me.

Today I moved the banner and the K's stand into the den so that I could stitch and watch TV. I have a small den - maybe 10' x 15' - and the K's stand with the banner on it is just too much in this small room especially where my stitching chair is located. But, I was willing to try it, nonetheless. I got settled and pulled the stand in close enough for comfortable stitching only to realize that I hadn't brought my threads with me from the office. I was so aggravated with myself! All the while I had been trying to get settled, my cat, Little Girl, had a panicked look on her face as she tried to figure out how she was going to sit in my lap with this contraption in her way. She climbed on the table next to me but that didn't get her any closer. Then she climbed on to the arm of my chair and squeezed herself under the canvas. She couldn't get any more settled than I could.

Since I had no threads with which to stitch, I had to move the K's stand out of my way - no small feat given the heavy base on the stand - not to mention moving the cat out of my way. I retrieved the threads and came back to the den to rethink whether I would be happy stitching this canvas in the den. At some point I decided to move the K's stand out of the way and try the System 4 just to see if it would even hold the banner. And, sure enough it did - as long as it was clamped in the middle of the frame.  So I may try this when I want to stitch the banner in the den.

I don't want to bore you with the details of how and where I do my stitching but maybe it helps someone else who might be trying to figure out where and how to stitch a canvas the size of the Christmas banner. If nothing else, I learned that both my floor stands will work and each has its advantages and disadvantages.

Until Amy has us start on the pears, following my progress on the banner might be as exciting as watching paint dry. There is a lot of border to stitch on this project and that's all I am working on this month! I think I made good progress this week stitching the crenellated border. I finished the crenellations along the left border and half way across the bottom border. I started on the top border this afternoon.

The Rhodes stitches are the next step in completing the border. I may stitch some of those in the left border just for a change of pace this week. I wanted you to see the cute magnet that Amy sent with the first banner lesson. It's the perfect accessory for this Home Study.

I enjoyed having a small project to work on this week - my Frankenstein from Needle Deeva. I finished up Frank yesterday and Hooty Owl is already on the stretcher bars as my next small project.

Frankenstein was as much fun to stitch as Fraidy Cat and those two are patiently waiting now for Hooty Owl to join them before they head off to the finisher. Thanks NeedleDeeva and Robin for this fun series of Halloween ornaments!

That's my stitching news for this week. Hope your stitching went well this week! If you can stand it, I'll show you some more of the crenellated border next week! Maybe I'll have some Rhodes stitches to show you instead!