As I’m writing this post, I’m sitting outside enjoying the beautiful weather on Saturday 13th April 2019. All the while listening to Kitten Stitcher – Episode 42 and recovering from the 5km leg of the Australian Running Festival in Canberra I participated in this morning and trying not to fall asleep!
I ran the whole 5km, which normally isn’t a big deal for me. However, my training in the lead up to the event hasn’t been where I would have liked, and it’s a hillier event than other courses in Canberra. Also, the week leading up to today’s event I haven’t been sleeping very well and I’ve been playing catch-up with my hydration. On Monday I was silly enough to leave my drink bottle at home which holds 1.89 litres and I didn’t make the most of the opportunities available to me to drink more water.
Stitching wise, I’ve been rotating through three different projects. I’ve been really enjoying the Jingle Bells (my name for the project, not the official name) project because of how awesome it’s looking on the blue fabric and the colours in the pattern.
I’ve swapped out a couple of colours – one intentionally, one unintentionally. I wanted to have a silvery/metallic look to key parts of the pattern to make things interesting and add a different element to the pattern.
The other colour change was one of the blues in the blue bell because I didn’t have the colour recommended in the pattern, so I chose a different blue that I think works well. The image below shows with an arrow pointing to the blue I have used instead of the recommended blue.
I then get my cat fix with the four seasons pattern that’s been my off and on pic for the last few years. My aim is to get it finished by the end of this year.
My challenge for this year/next few years is my first Heaven and Earth Design that I’m stitching for my sister. I’m stitching it one over one (one strand over one square) on 28 count fabric. Which means that the crosses are tiny.
I started this picture about a year or two ago and then got back into it early February 2019. Two of my biggest challenges with this has been keeping track of where I’ve stitched on the fabric in comparison to the pattern and the confetti stitches. So far I’m lucky that the area I’m stitching in has a lot of similar colours, so it wont’ matter too much if I don’t use the same colour that is recommended on the pattern. As long as I don’t confuse myself too much when I move onto future pages!
So where to from here?
Running wise, I really need to fire up my interest and passion for it. A few years ago, I was regularly running 5km 3 to 4 times per week and I was seeing significant progress in my times to complete the distance. I need to fire up again so that I can feel a lot more prepared for future events – the next one being the Mother’s Day Classic.
Stitching wise, I really want to make the most of the fabric I’ve recently bought on a trip up to Mittagong and do those fabrics justice by choosing patterns that compliment them.
All the while finishing the three patterns I’m working on that you’ve seen in this post!
Happy Stitching !
The XStitching Runner 