Finished my Sampler rotation

Well it's Monday morning and I'm at the changeover from one rotation to the next. Last night, later than I'd expected, I finished working on the New England Sampler and I finished it at a good stopping point. I'm sure it took me more than the 2-3 hours I predicted and it didn't help that I made a tiny mistake and then had to undo stitches. But I have left it at a 'finishing' point without starting a new area and I've also left it without the mistake in it--another one of my 'rules'.





Can you see the single stitch gap in the purple row? Not leaving that was the mistake I made last night. There is a church steeple that goes through that gap. Anyway, I'm really glad I fixed that up!




Maybe I should put in writing some of the craft rules I've come up with over the years.

1. Always finish a project. (I guess most of us have this rule.)

I used to have a corollary to this which was Don't start a new project until you finish the project you're working on. ie only work on one thing at a time. I don't follow this rule anymore! (And sometimes this bugs me--but the results--getting things done that I otherwise wouldn't do--speak for themselves.)

2. Don't leave a project with a mistake in it. (You won't want to pick it up again because it will be a pain figuring out what was wrong and undoing it. Of course the longer you leave a project untouched with a mistake in it the harder it is the next time to remember what the mistake was and figure out what to do about it.)

3. Always, always, always go back and undo mistakes and re-do it right. Even if the mistake is invisible to 99% of the people who will look at your project YOU will always know it is there and your eye will be drawn to it whenever you look at the project and you will regret not fixing it. The amount of time it takes to fix a mistake is tiny compared to the volume of regret you will feel later.

Those are the main rules I can think of now. I have a particular cross-stitch rule which I guess most of us also have--Wash hands every time before working on a cross-stitch. Recently when I was working on a hot day and sweating and I was away from home I had to compromise about this rule. I've tried using hand sanitiser when I couldn't wash my hands. I don't know if this helped with cleanliness but at least I wasn't getting germs on my work!



This is my next project. I was looking at the pattern last night and it really looks like it will be a breeze to finish. One can always hope! Oh, it comes with two sayings. I'm going to do 'she who collects the most fabric wins'.