WIP Wednesday: SAL Updates

Last week I showed you my Vakje per Week which looked like this with the trees being the most recent addition to the embroidery. This week's pattern was lovely and easy and I was able to finish it on Saturday - the same day the pattern was released!
I used ThreadWorX 10362, started in a corner and just stitched diagonal lines, being sure to make the squares along the edges complete before zooming off in the next direction. The result is very nice I have to say, and it's completely random too! There were times when it looked like it was all going to go horribly wrong and not line up, but suddenly the spaces were smaller and smaller between the lines and then I was in the final corner and it was all done.

If you look closely you will notice that I did something else too... the beads of the top two boxes. Now that the hoop is no longer anywhere near where the beads needed to go I decided it was high time the beads were added and I picked two colours of beads from my stash: TOHO TR-11-47D - Opaque Shamrock in the top right box and TOHO TR-11-PF564F - Permanent Finish Matte Galvanised Brick Red (now wasn't *that* a mouthful?!) in the top left box. I really love using TOHO beads as they are a nice uniform size and I can fit a size 28 tapestry needle through them twice whilst threaded with a strand of floss. The ability to go through twice is important to me as I like to make an x through the bead to make them all stand nicely to attention as it were without being on the diagonal as it would be if you only did it once.

The Linen and Threads 2017 Mystery Band Sampler Stitch Along was at this stage last week and thanks to the Vakje per Week going so fast I was able to spend many more days playing catchup on this sampler, which is nice as I find I don't like being behind much. Once I'd finished the right hand side I decided that I would go ahead and do the February and March bands as then I wouldn't feel so terribly behind and would only have a little bit of January left to do once I'd caught up with those bands.

Here you can see how far I have come with doing what I planned. Other than the filler for the lower part I have completed February. I used DMC 160 and 793 blended together for the bird and for the arches of the February band. I chose these two together as that got them as close as I possibly could to the darker blue in the variegated thread I used in January. The two greens are also blended colours as I didn't have a perfect match in DMC - these aren't perfect either but closer. The darker green is DMC 561 and 991, the lighter green DMC 563 and 368. The edges of the embroidery and the straight lines between the bands are done with DMC 964, the zigzag lines with DMC Color Variations 4040, and the triangles with DMC 597. The filler that I've not completed is DMC 3807, even though that colour does not show up in the variegated thread. I am going to be using colours that are close to the colours in the main variegated thread that I started with in January more frequently as that gives me a larger pallet to work with so don't be surprised if you find a darker or lighter colour show up that's close to one I'm already using.

I definitely don't feel so behind now and am happy that I'll be starting the March band while it's still March which makes me feel like I'm almost caught up!

As for the other SAL's I'm doing, I decided to get the two I have showed you today completely up to date before trying to catch up on the next one as that way I won't feel so overwhelmed by the behindness of it all. That's all for this week, I'll be back next week with another update. Don't forget the Mucha Princess inspired fob pattern will be up on Friday, I only have a few more to go before I've run out of the ones that Pinky The Pink has published and then there will be a break in these patterns till the next set is made available.