Again a little late with the update, I just get side-tracked by the stitching.

Qs Arthur, dear Qs Arthur, oh how he manages to test my patience.  But I don’t think it’s really his fault, it’s all mine.  You see I have a method of stitching (in columns) and it’s quite methodical and because I’ve been doing it a little while now I’ve got quite speedy at it.  Then I decide I’m going to try something different.  So for Arthur I experimented with half cross stitch/ tent stitch call it what you will and it was lovely for those big blocks of colour.  But then I get to the confetti patches (and there are a lot of those in Arthur) and it all falls to pieces.  I’m working two strands so it’s getting quite bulky at the back.  I can’t stitch columns because the lines become more obvious thanks to the extra bulk.  Normally I don’t need to mark my pattern, I can remember where I am I just put a big cross through the block when I’m done to stop myself looking at it any longer but because I’m now going here, there and everywhere I have to keep track.  I now have to plan my route and find those stray stitches in a wider area.  In short it’s slowing things down and it’s chaotic I have stitched my way out of cross country I just can’t do it any more.  For me columns are more efficient (it’s not the same for everyone, there’s probably as many ways of working through your project as there are stitchers).

So halfway through page 5 of QS Arthur I put him down and had a little scream, he was driving me potty.  I did something else for a little while, a bit of knitting, a bit of exploring and bashing things in Elder Scrolls Online (my new distraction).  But I couldn’t give up on him I knew that I had to carry on.  Once that was clear in my head the rest of the page didn’t seem to take so long and now page 5 is finished and the last full page of stitching on him is finished.  There’s a couple of fiddly patches to come but it’s mostly background and the background on this one at least stitches quickly.

I’m still rotating though, just swapping between him and Alice still a page at a time.  I’ve got a finish in the not too distant future and I’m still planning on going back to Whispers when he is done.

The other big news is that I’ve picked my coloured pencils up again.  I used to have tubs of pencils and crayons when I was young and I came to the decision that you don’t have to stop colouring just because you get older.  So I got myself some digital stamps and printed off a couple of pages to colour in.  Now when my stitching drives me potty I can have a relaxing little colouring in session.