Flying Lesson

No, I’m not really taking flying lessons. This is about cross stitching – this chart – Flying Lesson, by Silver Creek Samplers.

I’m not a fan of Halloween but I don’t mind having a few jack-o-lanterns and my outside purple and orange lights outside. I don’t like gruesome Halloween stuff or scary stuff. Because of my dislike of summer, Halloween means to me that Fall is officially here and summer is officially behind us so, whether I decorate for Halloween or not, the holiday itself does make me smile as I say “goodbye and good riddance” to summer. Tomorrow, our high is supposed to be 84 degrees. But . . Halloween comes on October 31 and look at this forecast.

Our first freeze! So, I can’t dislike Halloween.

Anyway, when I saw the Flying Lesson chart, maybe two months ago, I knew I had the perfect fabric for it.

It was exactly two months ago that I started stitching. First, it’s 36 count and that’s not my favorite count for stitching. I’ll only use a single strand of floss. I love XJu Design’s fabric but sometimes, especially the fabric from several years ago, the 36 count seems to be a bit more open than some 36 counts.

I started stitching with the called for DMC – started with the N on the far right at the top. It wasn’t showing up so I pulled it out. Then I saw that someone was stitching that part in purple and they listed the color of floss they were using and I stitched the N with that color. Using one floss and the overdyed floss, the coverage wasn’t great and the stitching wasn’t showing up as well as I would have liked so I put it all away.

Last week I was watching Stitchy Friends’ video and about the 17 minute mark, Sarah showed hers fully finished. She used the Hanging Sign finishing kit from Chantelle at 141 Design Co. Seeing that made me want to get this piece stitched. I did order the Hanging Sign but I’m not sure it will arrive before Halloween and I’m certainly not sure I’ll get my piece finished by then.

After thinking about the floss I will use on this 36 count piece of linen, I decided to go with the Sulky 12 wt. cotton Petites, which is thick enough to work with just one strand. I stitched the top line and left the “N” done in one strand of overdyed cotton.

I did kinda want to stay with the grayer tones of floss but . . it’s Halloween so I decided to use the colors I wanted to use.

That part is done.

Here’s my plan to get this stitched before Halloween but .. you know how my plans go (they don’t!):

By the end of the day:

• October 24 – Have the moon, hat bat and stars stitched.
• October 26 – Have the “Fly By Night” and the top and bottom lines above that stitched.
• October 28 – Have Aviation Institute and Est. 1692 stitched
• October 31 – Have the broom and stars at the bottom stitched

Wish me luck!