Cross-Stitch Project

I'm home alone tonight.  I can't remember the last night I was ever home alone.  My oldest son is with his buddies at a bonfire after spending the early part of the evening doing vehicle repairs in our garage with those same buddies.  My middle son is at a friend's cabin by Brainerd, MN.  He left this afternoon.  This will be a much needed break for him from baseball.  I hope he spends a lot of time on the lake.  My daughter is sleeping over at a friend's house - the same friend with which she went camping earlier this week.  When they came to pick her up I asked, "Aren't you sick of her???  She just spent the last four days and nights with you!"  They said they loved having her around because she's so easy going and always happy!  I would definitely agree with that.  My husband went to our property "up north" to work on our Craig's List Screen House and he decided to stay over night - maybe two nights.  Hope he can find relief from the heat and the mosquitoes.

So.......after everyone left, I laid down on the living room couch.  As I lay there, I thought of the laundry that needed to be done, the bathrooms that needed to be cleaned, the ironing basket that was overflowing, the kitchen floor that is getting pretty close to being a baseball infield (baseball socks and pants shed ag-lime the second my son walks through the door), the grocery list and family menu that needed to be created.......and then I thought of the cross-stitch project that I haven't looked at in months.

What I was going to do this evening turned into a pretty easy decision.  I got out a favorite bottle of wine.

 Poured myself a glass.

And I got out my long lost cross stitch project.

I started this project the day my mom had bypass surgery - in 1995.  Here is what it should look like when it's completed.

The pattern is easy to read.....

but doing it on 11 count fabric makes for millions of tiny Xs on millions of tiny squares.  (It will be approximately 19 inches wide and 37 inches high.)

I did purchase a special "holder" for such a large piece of work to try to make it easier to work on and more portable.  When I brought it home, my husband said that if I ever needed another one, or if I knew of anyone else who needed one, he could easily make more!

The piece is loosely stitched to the horizontal pieces

and then it can be rolled and unrolled from the top or bottom.  The nuts on the top and bottom, keep the fabric rolled nice and tight.

Here is the completed part.

Here is the part in progress - I worked on P and Q tonight.  (The entire piece is done as far as the Xs on the squares.  All that is left is the outlining of each tiny square.)

Here's is the part that is unfinished - needs to be outlined.

Every year my mom asks if I'm close to being done.  She'd like to see me enter it in my local county far and possibly the Minnesota State Fair.  Those dates will come and go again this year.  My goal is to finish it before June 7, 2014.  That is the date of my parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary.  Hmmmm.......wonder what they'll be getting as a gift?!

"The only place where housework comes before needlework is in the dictionary."  -Mary Kurtz