This is the fourth year I have attempted my Longest Day Marathon. This year I was able to stitch on the actual Longest Day itself as it fell on a Friday. My younger son is at school all day and the older one has just finished his 16+ exams (GCSEs in the UK) and went out with friends for the day. He usually goes to my parents on a Friday but they are away so my evening stitching was a little truncated compared to previous years while I spent some time with him.
Fortunately I have fewer WIPs this year - down to only 18. I don't include all my Just Nan ornies that I started for Maynia in this challenge. That's for another day, maybe the new 24 Hours of Cross Stitch challenge on Facebook and FlossTube? I'm already taking part in their Letters Challenge. More of which in another post.
On to the Marathon! As usual I spent time the day before finding all the projects, charts, fabrics and threads and laying them out on the bed. Thanks to previous year's Marathons this is a fairly simple task as I put them all away together after the Marathon.
As ever, the first piece to be worked on is my current 10-a-Day project: Just Nan's Summer Typography:
I added the orange centre to the flowers in the top left corner
The Small Boy went off to school and the marathon started in earnest.
9.10am Project 2 Just Nan Butterfly Needlebook side 1:
There was hardly any stitching left, as I am adding the beads and initials after I finish the second side:
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so at 9.25am Project 3 I moved on to the second side of the Needlebook:
I completed the border and added some green vine:
10.00am Project 4 Lavender & Lace Enchanted Alphabet Spooky Conversion:
I gave the existing ghosts eyes and started a fourth ghost:
10.30am Project 5 Lyndisfarne Designs Discworld Mappe:
I filled in the darker green of the landmass:
11.00am Project 6 Chatelaine Designs Gardens of London:
I added some Algerian Eyelets to the inner border:
11.30am Project 7 Nora Corbett Gathering Eggs:
I added the purple ribbon to her skirt:
12.00 noon Project 8 Nora Corbett Raven:
I added some light purple to the left of her dress:
12.30 break for lunch and laundry
1.30pm Project 9 Just Nan A Little Joy:
Another finish! I wouldn't usually bead on a Marathon day but there were only 16 beads in this. Hopefully I will FFO it this weekend:
2.00pm Project 10 Kustom Krafts Little Snap Dragon:
Added some blue to his wings. I love this picture but the stitching reinforces my dislike of computer generated charts, he is so pixellated:
2.30pm Project 11 Joan Elliott Faces:
Added some blue ribbon:
3.00pm Project 12 Scarlet Letter English Transitional Sampler:
Added some Holbein, got visited by a frog, restitched the Holbein!
3.30pm Project 13 Papillon Around the World in 80 Stitches:
Added green border:
4.00pm Project 14 Yiota Coffee Fairy:
Added more yellow in the coffee cup. Another CGI chart:
4.30pm Project 15 Samplermakers Spring Sampler:
Started the second tree. Those trees are the reason this is currently a UFO:
5.00pm Project 16 Marie Suarez My Lovely Sewing Tools:
Added some of the cream border. This will be my focus once I have completed 14 days of Discworld this month:
5.30pm break for Teatime
7.00pm Project 17 Craft Collection Art Nouveau Head:
Added some brown at the top:
7.30pm Small Boy wants to run around the garden for a while.
8.00pm Project 18 Ernie Bishop NOEL Letters:
Finished the O:
8.30pm break to wash-up and spend time with the Large Boy.
10.00pm Project 19 Mrs Peggotty's Queen of Hearts:
10.30pm filled in some of the blue stripes:
And so to bed!
Previous years -
2018 - stitched 26 projects
2017 - stitched 24 projects
2016 - stitched 21 projects
It's good that I have managed to get my WIPs down to less than 20. This is my plan going forwards, to only start new projects when I have completed an older one. Other than the monthly Ornaments of course.
Thanks to everyone who joined in on Facebook, whether you stitched or just watched. It was fun to see all the "likes" over the course of the day.
Finally, here's a little video clip of me talking about my set-up:
13 comments:
Interesting to see your progress over a full day of stitching.
Congrats on working on all of your WIP's Jo. You made great progress on all of them.
Linda
WELL DONE xx
Impressive! Love this Marathon report and the movie too (I'll watch it as many times as necessary to understand every word I promess). Bravo ! xxx
Woo hoo! My Lovely Sewing Tools is so very awesome!
Way to go! Very inspirational.
You are amazing...a stitching whirlind. Great job, Jo. RJ@stitchingfriendsforever
Hey Jo! Wow! I'm shattered just reading through that. Well done on making progress on all of the designs, did you stop for breath at any point?
Hope you are all well. I will be going back through your blog to catch up a bit on what I have missed!
Well done Jo ,You have some beautiful stitching there .
What fun .
Fantastic progress on all your beautiful pieces. It was sure fun.
I didn't do the marathon this year - I feel overwhelmed by my WIPs as is, I really don't need to see them all in one spot! - but as always, it's so much fun to read about yours. Great job on getting your WIPs down so much, it makes tasks like this way more managable :)
As always I loved the journey through your longest day stitching marathon. No picture of coffee and cake this year though?!
I wonder whether stitching a piece you maybe haven't stitched on for a while has moved it further up your 'have to stitch on that now' list, much like My Lovely Sewing Tools a few weeks ago? Good to see a finish in there too, and thank goodness the frogs didn't hang around for too long. :)
Great progress for a long day, and you even got a finish in! Very impressive.
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