The end of the first Sunny week ...

Thursday (the 8th) was the end of the first week for the Sunny stitchalong.

Basically, the HAED bulletin board put up five charts and I got to choose the one I wanted to stitch. I was sent the info for the chart I had chosen (Sunny by Myka Jelina) and then one week a month - from the first Friday to the following Thursday - I stitch on that chart. I have to put progress pictures on the board and, as long as I've put at least two pictures on between July and December this year, I will qualify to get the other four charts free! These get sent to me some time in January and I can add them to my (rapidly expanding HAED) collection!

I think this is a brilliant idea and the ladies that organize it are fab, it must take such a lot of work. It's amazing to think that there are stitchers all over the world stitching on the same chart as me! It has been really interesting to see how far everyone has got within the week. Some people have done a little, some a bit more and I think there is one poster who has done the whole page! I wish I could stitch that fast but you have to remember never to measure yourself against others! Everyone stitches differently and some have more time to stitch (time to stitch is pretty rare round here although I can usually get a couple of hours a night in).

I am pretty pleased with how far I have got. You can just make out where her eyes are going to be. I think I have got about a third of the page done although I do need to bite the bullet and stitch the flower that should be in the top right hand corner. It's got loads of confetti stitches in it and I think I'll come back to it next time - it'll help break up the monotony of stitching the white of her face. The colours are gorgeous though, so many shades of purple but it really is effective. The crosses you can see all over the fabby is my gridding - this is really useful on HAED designs as it is sooooo easy to lose your place and if you do you're in trouble! They are such a pain to frog as the count is so high the stitches come out really tight and you just can't get the needle in to unpick then without the thread fraying all over the place!

I think managed to get about 2300 stitches in and I spent about 19 and a half hours on her. It doesn't look much for that amount of time does it! It has been really hot though this week so it's made it really hard to actually just sit and stitch. And the bugs have been driving me crazy - I've got all the windows open because it is so hot but the daylight lamp seems to attract every bug in town! I've had to resort to a citronella candle by the side of me to try to keep them away - doesn't seem to be working that well unfortunately :-(

So, that's Sunny's week done. Back onto Aurora now for the next week, the greens and blues will make a change from the purples and black. I've not stitched on Aurora since 20th June so it will be nice to get back to her.