UPDATES ON MY UFP's (and that "Gettysberg" project)

Greetings peeps, hope you are all well!

Remember my post from last year regarding my UPF's, and how I had compiled a list of projects I wanted to complete in January?  It was a long list, and I didn't get through half of it in the end :(

So, I wrote a new list, especially for this year!

So far, the only ones I've touched are the cross-stitch projects.

There were three small projects featured on last year's list that had still not been finished, and I decided that I really needed to finish them.

"The Sloe Fairy"

"Forever Friends"

"The Marigold Fairy"

The last one isn't on the list above, but I decided to include it anyway. The two Flower Fairy kits both use DMC colours and I've had to stock up on some of the colours so I can finish them.

I confess to being a bit wasteful with my thread (shameful, I know)!

The "Sloe Fairy" now only needs the back stitching doing as does the "Forever Friends" one.  I shall keep all three in my workbag until they're all completed!

And, so to that "Gettysberg" project...

Still far from finished after 14 years (yes, really) on and off the frame.  People have told me that they have had projects that have taken much longer to complete than this, so I shouldn't feel too badly about it, but I really would like to see it finished now!

I've probably said this before, but it's not a friendly stitch, due to the fact that it's so huge, and trying to work with three strands on 18 count aida is a nightmare!  I also need a magnifying glass because the holes are tiny (as are the squares on the chart) and I had my first major miscount last week which required quite a bit of unpicking.

Not great on a project that uses neither DMC or Anchor threads.  Dimensions have been good enough to provide me with a conversion chart, but so far I am finding it difficult to get exact colour matches with either DMC or Anchor (in fact, some suggestions are WAY off the mark)!

I hope I can finish it without running out of thread, but it's really testing my wastage skills to the max ... hahaha!

Here's what I've done over the last week:

"Un-picking ahoy!"

I'm not even half-way through :(

My plan is to try and focus on getting the Union soldier's face done plus the flag and the sky, so that the design can be flipped back round the other way on the frame.  The very dark shades of blue are making this hard going, and I can only work on it over short periods of time.

Now that I'm trying to focus on stitching designs that I hope to sell as charts on my Etsy store, this will probably take a back seat, but I'll keep it on the frame (when I'm not using it for other projects), and hopefully it'll keep me motivated to finish it!

So that's it for now, I'm off to stitch something (haha)!

Till next time ... keep Kalm and cross stitch! x