Some of you may have noticed that the Planned page no longer has “expected” dates for each of the designs. That is because I kept having to push the dates forward when once again a deadline whooshed past me, and I was beginning to find it quite depressing and not a little stressful. Time to remind myself that all this designing and stitching is meant to be first and foremost a hobby – something I enjoy. So out went the dates, and I feel much better for it!

But even without dates there’s enough to stitch, really. I generally try to put a new design on the website roughly once a month, or a bit more often if things happen to go smoothly. But the SAL (which I am enjoying tremendously – it’s such a joy seeing all those different versions!) needs pictures of all the stitches-in-progress for the twice-monthly blog, which means stitching a second version of each month. And then friends decide to have a baby and so a card needs to be stitched (juggling colours because they have chosen not to know whether it’s a boy or a girl). And the Hardanger course at the Percival Guildhouse starts in three weeks’ time, so I’d better start getting the materials packs ready. All very pleasant things to do, but it means the Planned list gets pushed into the future once again.

So do I really need to stitch an alternative version of the first project in the Hardanger course? No, of course I don’t. The model is stitched, as are all the others for the first course (though two of them still need to be made into a needlebook), so I should sit back, relax, and get on with stitching Blackthorn. But as I was going through my perles (do you ever do that? Just have a play with all your threads and fabrics, try colours together, pet any of the really strokeable threads?) I thought, “wouldn’t it be nice to try this one on 28ct – make it a slightly better fit for a card, too, and still OK for beginners as there’s no cutting – and those dusky pinks would go together very well with that dusky pink Jobelan I’ve got somewhere in the bottom drawer; pink on pink for the neutral shade – quite a different look, just the thing to demonstrate what a difference colour and count can make” and before I knew it the dusky pink Jobelan had snuggled into a spare hoop and was showing off the perles to me. Well, how could I resist? So here’s what I’ll be stitching with over the next few evenings, and hopefully in my next post I’ll be able to show you the two versions side by side.