I finished Stars so that I could start on Autumn Kaleidoscope! I knew John and I were heading to the lake for a few days of skiing and relaxing, so I wanted to be able to start stitching Autumn Kaleidoscope this weekend. Since I didn't like the purple and blue highlights in the original but liked the base colors, I changed the overdye to use 2 colors from ArtFabrik – Fall Maple and Pumpkin Patch. They have similar colors but each was missing at least one color I wanted but combined, they were exactly what I wanted. I'm alternating which color I use as I stitch the inner border and it seems to be working. For my “pop” colors, I changed the purple to cranberry and the blue to yellow/gold.

When I went to start stitching, I realized I did not have any of my #8 Pearl Cotton so I was extremely disappointed thinking maybe I couldn't start after all. Then I realized I could baste the outline so I would have the proper counts to do the inner borders. No problem, right?! What I didn't realize as I started the inner border was that I had basted the outer part of the outer border Smyrnas. I thought I'd checked my counts of Star stitches but apparently mis-counted on the first diagonal row. I was going to start in the Chilly Hollows in section 1, but my counts weren't t working. Aha! Fortunately, I mostly counted from the top border and I'd only stitched the top quadrant so I only had a few stitches on the left border and one vertical row of Star stitches to take out.

So here I am at this point. January sections done! Lots of Smyrnas and Star stitches to go! I'm really enjoying the piece – other than the borders, it seems to be a quick workup. Another great choice for our SOTM!

Diane's with January sections

Posted with Blogsy