Mini Happy Dance!

Branches and buds or berries or whatever they are--DONE!

Yes, it's a horrendous picture, but it's ten o'clock at night and I couldn't wait until daylight to announce that this part is stitched.

And, no, it hasn't taken me all week to do this. Actually, although I packed the whole kit and caboodle and took everything with me on a business trip, I never threaded a needle until last night. And then I just held it in my hand for about fifteen minutes before I staggered off to bed.

However, tonight I was determined. Boy howdy, was I determined. And now all those bitty stitches over one are done!

You will, however, notice that the centers of the two cartouches are blank. When Catherine designed this sampler, it was meant to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild, and the cartouches had the guild name and anniversary dates.  While I am now a member of that esteemed body, I was not then, so it's not appropriate.  I took the class at one of Jeannine's Gatherings in Williamsburg.

I thought about putting that, but the problem is that I stitched part of a leaf and a thread or two in the border and made lots of notes. That does not deserve a mention. It deserves a footnote.

So I'm pondering. And while I'm pondering, I'm going to move to the bottom of the inside border and do more sprays of flowers and a few more bees and several blackbirds. At the moment, the plan is to park myself in the wing chair and stitch. I also plan to totally ignore some very necessary and quite overdue housecleaning and stitch until posterior paralysis and crossed eyes set in. At that point, I may run the vacuum and dust rag until the blood starts to circulate. Then I will stitch again.

On another note, does it seem to anyone else that April sort of vanished in a puff of smoke?  I thought March would never end, but it seems like I sneezed (and sneezed and sneezed--the pollen is killing me) and April was all but gone.