Ta-Da Finally Finshed!

 

Last night at 8:15 I finished His Eye is On the Sparrow, by Beth Twist-Heartstring Samplery.
Its taken three years, but I did it.

 

I never dreamed in a million years, I would accomplish this. There were months I didn't even pick it up. I can't even tell you the many, many times I thought I would just put it away. It was a test for me to continue on and keep stitching. Mistakes and all. I ripped out so many times, I was afraid of damaging the cloth. I would say that I learned so much doing this pattern.

 

I really had to look at it as one animal, or one page or just this tiny basket of flowers. I lost my mojo the week I realized I had just finished the sixth page, and counted and I found I had six more pages to go.
I sat and stared at it for days before I could even pick up my needle. During this time as I worked on it. Ron has changed jobs twice. Ben and Megan have sold and have been on the road. Kessie and Ryan moved and she had a baby and is getting ready to have another baby and William and Makenzie got married and moved three times. The boys that live at home finished college and have great jobs. I did 40 rugs and sold them. Emilie and Nik have been so crazy busy with life and he finally graduates from Seminary in April. So the saying that I loved so much on that stitchery, His Eye is on the Sparrow, and I know He watches me, was stitched on my heart too.

 

The stitch count of this is 435x363 all that means to me is that its big.
I can't watch anything when I am doing counted cross stitch because looking up and down bothers me so I listen to books on tape. While stitching I have listened to:
Bleak House( twice) Charles Dickens
Dombey and Son
David Copperfield
The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis
Sherlock Holmes read by Benedict Cumberbach 
All of the series about Mrs Polifax written by Dorthy Gilman read by Barbara Rosenblat three times there are nine of those books
The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit four time
The Little Princess and The Magic Garden by Francis Burnett three times each
Cherringham-A Cozy Crime Series eight of those.

I can't listen to anything rough or uses bad language or anything like that when I am listening to stuff on headphones. My house has to be clean and my work all done and I will stitch in the afternoons between 1-3. If I have dinner in the crockpot I will let myself stitch until four. I don't do much counted cross stitching once Ron gets home because I can't talk and count. I can rug hook then.

 

I wanted to finish it before fall, which was Saturday. I almost made it. That was my goal. Now I will take a break I think from counted cross stitch. I really want to get back to dyeing wool. Hooking and drawing out patterns. I did manage to get all of my rugs bound this summer. But I will tell you this, my next counted cross stitch project, well, it will only be on one page.
Thanks for being with me on this journey.
~Kim~

“All my girlhood I always planned to do something big…something constructive. It’s queer what ambitious dreams a girl has when she is young. I thought I would sing before big audiences or paint lovely pictures or write a splendid book. I always had that feeling in me of wanting to do something worth while. And just think, Laura…now I am eighty and I have not painted nor written nor sung.”

“But you’ve done lots of things, Grandma. You’ve baked bread…and pieced quilts…and taken care of your children.”

Old Abbie Deal patted the young girl’s hand. “Well…well…out of the mouths of babes. That’s just it, Laura, I’ve only baked bread and pieced quilts and taken care of children. But some women have to, don’t they?...But I’ve dreamed dreams, Laura. All the time I was cooking and patching and washing, I dreamed dreams. And I think I dreamed them into the children…and the children are carrying them out...doing all the things I wanted to and couldn’t.”
― Bess Streeter Aldrich, A Lantern in Her Hand
( My life today.)