One Stitch At A Thyme

Topic:  Pick one of the WIP pieces you’ve stitched on this month, and tell us about your stitching journey with the piece.

Well this will be an easy topic as I have been concentrating on only one piece.   I've had a love/hate relationship with Camelot Sampler for the last 14 years.  Well hate is a bit strong, let's just say I get stitcher's burn-out fairly quickly when all I work on for 99% of the time is one-over-one.  If you're interested in the history of this piece read on...

I originally started this project back in 1997.  I had worked the sword block and part of the Guinevere block before I got frustrated with working the one-over-one sections.  It was my first time encountering this type of cross stitch, plus the fact that this was the first time I had stitched on evenweave fabric.  So I put it away in the closet and forgot about it until 2 years later.  I didn't like the look of the over-one section on Guinevere so I tried to frogg it out and ended up ruining the 28 ct. fabric that came with the kit.  I ended up calling Leisure Arts to find out what the original model was stitched on.  I found out it was 25 ct. bone Lugana.  I had to drive around 100 miles away to Spokane, Wa.  to the closest brick n' mortar needlework shop to buy a new piece of 25 ct. evenweave.   They didn't have bone and ended up buying mushroom Lugana.

I started it again in March 2001.  By accident I centered the herringbone stitch row on either side of the sword block.  This caused me to move the Arthur and Guinevere blocks over by one row, thus having them butted up against the wrapped backstitch line.  I realized this had happened after I had finished the outline of both Arthur and Guinevere blocks.  It wasn't that noticeable so I left it be.   I put it away again until 2004, worked on it off and on for 2 more years.  When I backstitched the eyelids for both A & G, I only did the upper lids, for me it simply looked better that way.  I thought I was so sure I'd be finishing it by the end of 2005 that I put that as the finish date.  Well that was wishful thinking as I had added to my WIP list by 10 pieces and ended up leaving CS on the bottom of said pile.  I didn't start working on it again until 2014 when I joined Measi's WIPocalypse SAL.  Well I picked out the 2005 date and put in 2015.  When I finally got to the jousting scene I didn't like the way the faces of the king and queen were stitched, by splitting the face thread, so I left them blank.  I am confident I will get it finished this year thanks to Measi's SAL who keeps me motivated from month to month.  That and this year will be the 20th anniversary that the chart was first published, so it would be really nice to get it finished this time.  And there you have it my stitching journey so far with this piece.

Thank you!! To all the friends, followers, and lurkers who stopped by, and if you've managed to make it to the end of my novel.