Eagle eyes in the Autumn garden

I was quite sad that from now on I will need the glasses, but miracle of miracles: it was the grey fabric and not my eyes!!! When I took out Autumn Watergarden, which is my usual antique white Belfast there was no problem with seeing the holes. I am happy to go on with my own sight, and hopefully they will last a couple of years...

I not only continued this piece, but also joined on facebook the weekend Chatelaine stitching, and having explicit goals really motivates me. Mushroom&Fern went quite slowly, but Autumn Watergarden either has significantly smaller parts, or I am much better to reach them, so I had quite a nice progress in the last 2 weekends. 

During the week I have almost no time for stitching. Life is turning back to prepandemic routine, and my travel is back. It is not too much, 2 days every 2-3months, but I did not miss it at all... I like meeting my colleagues in person, and I also like travelling for fun with my family, but mixing work and travel is not to my taste.

But enough of whining, pics are better:

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

chestnuts

I just realised that in English there is a difference between horse chestnut and normal chestnut. All the pictures I did before in practice are horse chestnuts and the real chestnut came only now, with the second half of the Autumn Watergarden as seen above.

And the piece in its full glory (minus the wrinkles...)

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

Autumn Watergarden - one branch of chestnuts ready

 I have finished the chestnuts, and there is the other half branch of a different type of cheshnut, a hairy one. When I am done with them, half of the piece is ready. I do not like it as much as the other ones, but I am committed to finish it. It is not so bad, but the colors are a little too cold for me, I prefer a warmer palette.

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

A closeup of the finished branch:

Autumn Watergarden garden gate finally done

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

I have finished the second garden gate. I can see that the 1 year homeoffice with 8-10 hours screen time took its toll on my eyesight - it is getting tougher to see the holes on my 36 ct linen. Maybe it is also the natural flow of time (my doctor said in the last couple of years, that it is a great blessing  I still do not need  glasses - next year they will come for sure!) that closing on 50 (sounds quite a lot, huh) brings the inevitable. So I was doing one stitch a time, skipped evening stitching even with my ottlite, and used only weekend daylight hours to finish the perle and the flowery silver lining on the gate. I am also thinking on getting stitching  glasses...but at lest it is ready, and I can move on the last part, the side branches.

Autumn Watergarden - cattails are growing

I have finished the second cattail part of Autumn Watergarden. The corners and the middle one had been finished last week, now I am moving to the gate and the branches to finish the second quarter.

Closeup of the cattails:

And a picture of what we are doing when I am not stitching:

No, not a natural diseaster - the family does it willingly. /Do not ask my son, under18 does not vote:) / We are trekking in the weekends, whenever the weather permits. The only problem, that the weather is quite tricky nowadays, so we decided not to listen to the forecast, just go whenever we want. 

This weekend it was 17kms of melting snow over tricky frozen ground creating a slippery path - with some rain given as an icing on the cake (mud?). But we met not only rain, but sunshine, deers, ravens and a beautiful sunset on a hilltop in the woods. The sunset was not that intentional, but gave the adventure a perfect finish - getting to the car just before it became fully dark...

Fall acorns are falling

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

Next to the chestnut there are some acorns

Chestnuts in the Autumn Watergarden

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

I have finished the Chestnut branch in th Autumn Watergarden. There is a mirror image of the branch left, and the first quarter is done.

Golden Gate

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

I have finished part 7&8 of the gate in my Autumn Watergarden. The scrollwork was quite difficult, both the pearl silk and the metallic gold tread-but the result worth the effort. There is only the corner motive left and the the 1st quarter of the garden is done. It is not as enjoyanle as Winter Watergarden was, but not too bad either.

There is one thing I have realised during stitching - my eyes are not as good as they were before. I had eyes like a hawk, and I started to realise it is deteriorating. I have a regular check each and every year in my yearly health check and the lady always said "still good, still good, but be prepared next year it will start to do down the hill"- this year she will be right! I still can see 36count linen without any magnifier, so it is not a life turning event, but I this is the first time I need to have a few seconds of adjustment prior to stitching. First proof I am closer to 50 than 40  - looks quite scary to writw those numbers down 😉

Autumn Watergarden

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

I have restarted stitching after quite a long hiatus. Somehow I lost my mojo, but the Easter holiday staying at home brought it back. I hope it stays with me for good! I have realised the main problem that the colors are not to my liking, they are kind of foggy greyish autumn instead of the rich golden ones. But I take one step a time, and when I am not bothered that I am going slowly it moves forward - and actually it moves forward quite quickly!

There is everything all right in this corner of the world. I have been working from home for almost a month. My son it homeschooling himself (very proud mom of a 10 years old, who does schooling independently!) because I have huge amount of workload. The good thing is that the homeoffice works smoothly, colleagues are extracooperative, so whatever can be done is done- but during the day I have hardly a minute free. Luckily my husband also works from home 4days a week, and his workload is significantly less, so he takes care of afternoon entertainment and in case some extradifficult task pops up. All the family is healthy, we are keeping distance, fridge is full - whatever could have been done is done, all the others will be taken care when it is needed.

Autumn Watergarden center

Chatelaine: Autumn Watergarden

Fonal/Floss: DMC + many silks as suggested in the kit

Anyag/Fabric: Zweigart antique white 32 ct Belfast

I have started Autum Watergarden to have some change to Pomarium, here is the center medallion.