Latrobe Terrace oh so close!

Well Latrobe Terrace isn't finished as I originally predicted. But it's close. I'd say a week or less will finish it. There's a tiny amount of xs to do then the backstitching. It really wasn't as 'big' of a project as I originally thought. Normally these Juniper Designs street scenes used to take me about 10 months to do before I started the rotation system. If I added up the rotations I've done on this I won't have spent anywhere near that amount of time. Just had a look back through my posts and I've seen that I started this early last July and have done about 5 rotations on it--so a total of 10 weeks. Rotations really do get projects completed. I'm seeing that now especially since I'm in my second year of rotations. Last year I started several of these larger projects so I didn't finish many of them. This year I'm going to see them all finished plus a bunch of others.



I am so glad to be getting away from linen for the moment though. It really takes a lot more concentration especially with half stitches. I'm doing the trees on the far left of LaTrobe Terrace now and I think I've gotten a couple of half stitches one thread off of where they are supposed to be. I just can't face fixing them now so I'm leaving them for next time.

I'm also up to the backstitching on the small Daydreams 'Life is a Journey' project and I can't decide how long to make my backstitches. I think I'll ask this question on one of the xs lists.

Well, I've been avoiding Cottages at Oak Bluffs II but it's time has come around so I'm starting my first rotation on that this year. When I was working on it before I found it very fiddly--one stitch here and another there. I picked it up about 4pm yesterday and concentrated on doing 3 colours--black, a dark grey 413 and the green railing. Just doing those has given it so much structure and has brought it along so much that it's really much farther along than I thought it was. I'd say that first house (house #3) is 45% done. This is going to be a good productive rotation and I'm really enjoying it. I may even get this house close to finished! TG for Aida!

New England Sampler progress

I decided to end my rotation on the New England Sampler after a very satisfactory two weeks. As previously reported I completed the lower panel in the first week. In the second week I finished the lower border including the bottom two corners and also stitched the boundary lines on the bottom and both sides of the sampler.

This seemed like a good place to stop. I could have carried on and worked on the side borders but decided to leave this to next time. The borders are relatively easy to do as they follow a regular pattern so they make a nice break from having to carefully follow the pattern on other areas of the sampler. So we'll see where I decide to pick this up next time.



In the meantime I think I can safely revise my estimate of completeness of this project to 65%.

I'm now working on LaTrobe Terrace.

A small finish and a major section of another completed

Going well with the rotations with some help from it being school holidays and Easter! I finished the second small cross-stitch on the Chinese project in less than a week. This left me with the second week of the rotation on the project free. The project comes with a patterned matting (but no glass or framing--darn) and there is some weaving of thread to do on the matting. But I didn't feel like doing that. I felt like cross-stitching. So I decided to go on to the next project a week early and maybe spend 3 weeks on it.



Well one week on with the New England Sampler and I've finished the botttom panel. I did the whole right half of it in one week. This included a number of long days of cross-stitching. Easter Sunday was the day I spent the longest on it--about 10 hours. It's worth it though to have that part done. I'm now going to work on the bottom border and see how long that takes me. If I'm enjoying it I'll stick with it, maybe doing some of the side borders, next week. If I'm ready for a change then I'll go on to LaTrobe Terrace.



I think it's time to estimate the completness of my projects:

Cottages at Oak Bluffs II--5% (this one has a lot of colour changes and is fiddly)

Verandas of South Battery---90% (looking good)

Chinese I--97% (only matting to do)

New England Sampler--55% (over half way!)

LaTrobe Terrace--70% (but could finish it off in one rotation)

With the quilts:

Jade's flannel quilt--85% complete (need to get back to this)
Houses wall hanging--75% (partly taken the front apart to straighten out the rows--fiddly!)

This is the first time with the rotation system that I've gotten so close to finishing most of my projects. So there could be a major turn-over of projects with new ones starting and I'm beginning to think which ones I'm going to bring in to replace completed ones. There are a few waiting.