YOTA UFO update!

It's that time again! The first saturday of the month and time for a YOTA UFO (Un Finished Object) update. The weather is hot as ever, Even more so than in august. But, we have had a bit of rain which is keeping the garden alive and helping it through the heat. We have some new iris plants in fresh from Shriner's iris farms out of Brooks Oregon. They have the best iris roots. Very large and shipped in a wood shreds organic packing material that keeps them from becoming moldy or soft. We had the pleasure of visiting their vast gardens one spring. Truely magnificent with flowers of all kind, benches to sit and admire the blooms and mail box stations along the way to pick through brochures stating colors and breeds of flowers.
I tried to take pictures of the plastic tags attached to the roots. There is so much humidity in the air that my camera lense fogged up. Thought I was going blind until I looked at the lense! Maybe in a few weeks the humidity will cooperate.
On to the stitching!
This Joan Elliott Wizzard has been my focus piece all through this years YOTA SAL. The link, if you wish to join the sal, with any ole' work that has been sitting for awhile, is on my side bar with a few other SAL's.
The cross stitch was done last month and back stitching had been started. I really was not going to back stitch this whole piece. I have used 1/4 stitches to chisel the edges so they were not so "stair step" looking and would take the place of the back stitching outlines. THEN I started working with the Krienik #4 braided metallic's required for the castle and some of the gown. I was hooked. Started using the Kreinik for everything but the face. DMC #3799, which is almost a black, was required for much of the gown and it was just too dark. This is what put me off the back stitching to begin with.
Before

 After, with more Kreinik Metallic's back stitching.

 Made a nice and sparkly upgrade!

I still have quite a bit of detail back back stitching on the gown and cloak. Once that is done, there is a ton of beads. But, I am in the home stretch with this one and look forward to getting this finished by the end of the year. Have a frame ready to go!
Have finally finished my yearly page goals, and then some, on Mini Autumn Cat Magic. Think this one will be put away until I can get my other page goals finished. Still have the birth sampler and holiday gifts to finish. Having a difficult time with the holiday stitching. Every time I choose something to stitch for some one, I change my mind.... Although, once the article is started that is final and will be the chosen gift. Oooh! Maybe that is what I should do! Start everything and then work from there! No more indecision.

I started another piece this past spring. This will be called a Mystery Sampler. And will be so named for a while! Working on the bottom three pages. They are each 1/2 of a page and hope to have them done this next week so I can go on to my last three HAED and their yearly page goals. Getting close to the end of the year(E GADDS!) I really cringed when a TV commercial( DH missed the mute on the remote...) started screaming that there are only 101 days until christmas. That was last week and I didn't need to be reminded of that!

Another UFO SAL that has been making a little progress is the Pepper's Pillow. I really shirked my duty on this one this past month. Only a few stitches. But, I really like the coral colors and how they have brightened up the piece even more.

No small piece's this time. All those HAED page goals are coming back to haunt me. Oh well, what the hey, it's coming up on halloween anyway.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

Deb