Stitching Toward the Finish Line(s)

My sister and I did solve the issues with the sweat pea sweater project discussed in yesterday's post and I did start stitching on it tonight and I did get pictures but I didn't get them off the camera and my eyes are too fried to fuss with the image/photo application--adjusting, cropping, rotating, resizing--so I'm going to delay describing that one today. But it feels like a huge WIN to have it started since getting it finished is a prerequisite for going home.

So I will talk about the other project I worked on today while waiting for my sister to be available to 'fix' the sweater project. Pictured above is Tri-panel needlepoint bookcover which I started in the winter of 98/99. It was meant for my nieces sixteenth birthday as a Bible cover which would accommodate a notebook and pen. I had finished the yarn work by the summer of 2000 and began putting in the outline stitches with the metallic silver thread. That niece is about to turn 25 and lives with her husband of two years in Montana. I've gotten this out as her birthday or Christmas approaches at least once a year but would get discouraged when I realized I wasn't going to finish it in time for that particular occasion so I might as well relax.

Well I felt so energized by finishing those twelve bookmarks Saturday night, I decided to harness that energy and target another languishing project. This one is one of the closest to the finish line plus my niece's birthday is in July. Also my sister or Mom are available to help me with some of the finishing touches that have me flummoxed--like getting the lining stitched onto the backside and making the pocket and so forth.

When the picture was taken a few days ago, I had eleven and a half horizontal rows of the silver stitches left to put in. Today I put in five and a half of them. A full horizontal row is three times as long as what is visible in the picture as the two end panels are folded under. Each panel is just a tad smaller than a sheet of typing paper. So when it is unfolded it is over twenty inches long and just over ten inches tall. If I remember right the canvas is 12 count and the purple and blue checkerboard are stiched 8x8 to make them 3/4 inch squares.