Back to work tomorrow

My Thanksgiving vacation ends tomorrow *sad face*. Then two more weeks of work and another short vacation before we get back to my regularly scheduled work. There is a benefit to saving up vacation days for the end of the year.

I was working on Penguin Family today. It really does help to have a list of what I want to do before I start. Otherwise, I spend time being all indecisive!

Before

After

I was able to fill in quite a bit of the penguin's wing (are the wings or flippers?) Hang on, let me google that... Hmm it seems that they are officially called flippers. I might get a bit more done on this tonight during the Hockey Game.

I also spent some time this weekend working on Kona Sunset.

The bottom two rows are stitched together.

And finally, I've decided to scrap my progress on the Fairy Spell and start it back over at some undetermined point. I haven't worked on this project in a couple months because it was tedious. This is as far as I got, about 1700 stitches in.

I came to this decision after much thought and trying out a new HAED on a different type of fabric. I have determined that I really don't like working with the evenweave I purchased from JoAnns. The linen by Wichelt that I purchased at Hobby Lobby is much nicer to work with and produces more even stitching results. In addition, the use of the red line to grid was proving troublesome, because it gets in the way. I'm now using a marker designed to wash out and keeping my fingers crossed. Despite having put several hours into The Fairy Spell, it is better to cut my losses now.

The humble beginnings of Hope Returns. 

This one isn't on my list this month, so I may work on it a little bit but it won't be the focus of my efforts.