Progress and a Bent Creek Start

Today is the day we post progress on the SAL 'A New Stitchy Start', so I thought I would show my progress here, too.

For me, I got a lot done - I'm very close to my 1,000 stitch January goal on 'Unspoken'.

Still pretty much invisible, though :D

I have also finished my January goal on 'Great Light'.  The shade of blue is finished.  Only had to frog twice!

And now I will tell you guys a little story - many, many years ago (about nine years, I think - maybe less?  thereabouts, anyway) I was still mostly stitching kits and just learning that there was a whole world of patterns out there.  My then-local library had a 'swap' day - bring a box of books or magazines, take a box (or just donate them and take nothing).  I had a lot of old paperbacks that had been given to me that I had no interest in, so I decided to take them down.

While there, I poked around the other donations, not intending to take anything.  One box, that honestly at first glance looked like trash, had a wrinkled crochet magazine sticking out of it.  Further investigation showed that someone had thrown a half-full cup of ice into the box and I started to just say 'ewwww...' and leave it, then I saw that there were charts in it, too.  So I took a chance and put it in my car trunk and went home to spread them out on linoleum to dry.

I thought the patterns were cute, but at the time had no idea how to kit them up; I understood what the DMC color codes meant, but the specialty floss names were a complete mystery and I thought you had to have them both.  Dried them out and put them away and it took a few years before I realized that I had treasure in that stack of wrinkly, spotted charts in the bottom drawer of a file cabinet.

Dozens, and I mean dozens, of Bent Creek charts.  In no shape at all to sell or even give away, but I can see the charts well enough to stitch them.  I've done 'One Bird Having Some Friends Over', 'Mom', 'Dad', and 'Sheep for Thee' from that box of 'trash'.  All of those are on my finished page, I think, if you want a look!

My little story is waaaaay too long, lol!  Anyway - I've wanted to do the monthly Snappers from 2003 for a while, but I didn't like the long row they are shown in.  Then I saw a picture recently where someone was stitching them in three rows of three and it was so cute!  And I couldn't resist, so:

Started!  Way late, but started!  The pic is dark 'cause it's night; the colors are a bit brighter than this. I'm using the DMC conversions, because I'm trying to be more frugal, stitching 2 over 1 on 18 count Antique White.  I'm going to try to do a block a month, though since I only started last night I might have to finish January's block in February. Also I have to tweak the border, which will be interesting! Anyone happen to know if there's a Bent Creek SAL out there I can join?

Gettysburg and a Little Sheep

Dase totally inspired me for July's UFO project - after seeing her incredible progress on Gettysburg, I just had to get my poor, barely-touched kit out and give it some luv.

Here's before:

And here's after:

I may get a bit more done on it before I put it away. I hope! My Da would really like to have this. You know, someday. Some far off, beautiful day... :D

And since I finished 'Achoo!' I decided I could start something else! Right? Yay! But I didn't want to start a big project. So here's my little bitty sheep. He's from the pattern 'Sheep for Thee' which I think is by Bent Creek but for the life of me I can't remember and it's at home right now.

There are five more sheep to go :D This sheep was supposed to be done in ecru (for the DMC version) but even though I used the recommened fabric color, it just didn't show up. So I tweeded him with the lightest shade of brown.