Isabel

 Isabel Redie was an over-achiever.

When I pulled her out of the stash, I thought she would be a good sampler for those times when I need to stitch but not necessarily think--beyond counting, of course.

But no--she has four-sided and Queen stitches and double running and multiple color changes within small motifs--plus a ginormous chart to manipulate and my next-to-longest scroll bars to contain her linen. Even the border, which looks like simple cross stitch, has extra stitches and curlicues that required more thinking than I could do on a Friday evening after a day spent setting up our guest room.

So I got the basic outline of the border stitch done by working half crosses. I'll fill in the extra stitches and curlicues on the way back.

And this meant that I had to find something relatively easy to work on during our Carolinas Region stitch-in on Zoom this morning. Believe it or not, Love That Red came back out, and I finished the numbers and did almost a whole decorative band:

I have another Zoom in a few minutes, so my crewel piece is going to get put back in the hoop.

Zoom stitch-ins do give you such a wonderful excuse to spend a Saturday with needle in hand!