A progress report on both Spring and my first tea towel completed!

Spring is somewhat hesitant this year. Instead of bursting forth in a glorious display she is taking her sweet time. Frankly I don’t blame her. The weather has been a bit here and there. We’ve had rain, snow flurries, temps well below freezing at night and climbing only in to the 40’s during the day. Yesterday was a “nice” day; sunny and making it almost to 60 but the chilly wind made it feel colder. The forsythia hedge has a few bloomers but it mostly looks like this. Waiting. Afraid to bloom.

Things are popping out of the ground left and right. I can see that my foxglove have broken ground and here is my bleeding heart bush.

The bank of ferns are starting to show their heads as well, but they haven’t grown much in a week. Smart plants.

More rainy weather is on the way for later today and tomorrow. I know, I know. April showers bring May flowers. Maybe I am just expecting too much from April. It’s hard to get out and trim up the main flower bed with all this rain and wind. I could bundle up in warm clothes and gloves but that somehow just doesn’t feel right. Aren’t you supposed to be in the garden working with the sunshine streaming across your back instead of the wind whipping your hair around your face so that you can’t see and the cold turning your fingers blue?

I have only one hyacinth and I’ve been checking on it daily and watching its progress. Yesterday when I went out to get a photo of it this is all that was left. Bella strikes again!

And look at this poor daffodil bud. Nipped in the bud, so to speak. Even though I put the bulk of daffodils behind bars this poor bud must have been sticking out so it got chomped on. Darn dog! I may have to fence the whole flower bed off is she continues in this fashion. I certainly don’t want her ingesting the foxglove! Maybe it’s a stage she’ll grow out of. Personally l think she’s part truffle hound. Always digging and finding things in the woods that I didn’t know were there.

Behold the first completed tea towel! Ta-da!

These particular towels have a hanging hook at the top, so I placed the pattern in the corner at the bottom so if it was hanging on a hook the design would be right side up. I’m satisfied with the way it came out although I could nit-pick at several things. I would have been finished a lot sooner if I hadn’t had to rip out several things several times. My color scheme did not work once I got it all stitched—too blah. The pattern seemed to have the quality of disappearing ink as time went on because it got lighter and lighter until I could barely see it in spots. What’s with that? I was afraid to rip out the clothing stitches in case the pattern was too light so Rick had the brilliant idea of leaving the stitches in place and just working the new stitches right next to the old. It did work. I almost left it this way because I thought it was interesting, but in the end I ended up ripping them out. Then I ripped out the new stitches on the trousers ..... well, you might be getting the idea that parts of this fellow just weren’t working! What do you think, should I have left it double-stitched? Do you like that effect?

Also in the photo you can barely see the imprint for the scarf. That’s how light the pattern became, so at times I had to guess. Same with his shoes—the pattern was pretty much non-existent.

This towel was a learning curve since I have not done this particular kind of embroidery before and it’s been a loooong time. I learned a few neatness tricks as I went but the back is not exactly what I would hope for. Still, not too shabby. And it certainly kept me occupied. I was surprised how fast it went when things were going well. The cactus went without a hitch and was the most fun thing to stitch.

Now on to the next one: the señorita with the chicken on her head. Her skirt looks like it could pose a few problems, but maybe just a series of straight stitches? Here she is hot off the pressing.

I’m hoping she doesn’t start doing the disappearing act too.

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The towel looks fabulous!  I kind of like the ‘double stitch’ effect, though.  Sometimes, if my pattern gets faint (or if the light is low) I just go over it with a lead pencil to darken it.  That seems to help, but as I get older, I find that I stitch best mid-day and in natural bright light!

The double stitch is very interesting, especially with this motif.  I think you did a very good job.  When I am quilting, or anything that requires eye effort, I use an ott-lite.

Good job, for the first effort!