Where Did I Put Those Matches???

"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings as eagles;

they shall run, & not be weary;

they shall walk, & not faint."
Isaiah 40:31

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Remember this???

I posted it on Monday.  It was my start of Good Tidings to You, a Sampler Girl design which appeared in the 2011 JCS Ornaments magazine.  I had stitched it that year for an exchange partner & always wanted one for myself.  When it came time for me to pick a new start, I picked this one.  Here it is this morning.

You are probably thinking "Wow, Easily Influenced Stitcher!  Way to go!"  Well, not quite.  I had actually stitched a bit more than this.  I had finished the word To & was starting the Y in the word You but something wasn't right.  I first suspected this when I stitched the word Good.  I had mistakenly left 2 spaces between the G & the o.  I should have left only 1.  This became apparent when I was stitching the d & didn't have any space to stitch the bottom left part of the letter.  I remedied this by frogging the d & & shifting it over 1 to the right.  This made it closer to the snowflake motif (or whatever that thing is) but I figured I could live with it.  I then began stitching Tidings.  When I got to the end of the word, the s was way too close to that snowflake thingie.  I checked my stitches.  Drat!  I positioned the dot on the second i one space too far to the right.  I frogged the ings & restitched them correctly, but things were still not right.  I couldn't understand it. Everything was positioned correctly based on the letters in the word above.  The snowflake thingie was positioned correctly. What in the world???  Well, it didn't really look bad.  There wasn't much space between the right snowflake thingie & the s but I convinced myself that I was okay with it.  I next stitched the To.  I counted & recounted based on the letters above it.  It was where it should be based on those letters, but still something was off.  It was at this point that I became concerned about the bunny.  What if the letters came too close to the bunny & messed up my stitching of him?  I looked at the chart ... the bunny was positioned far away from both the To & the You.  I decided I probably didn't have to worry.  I then began stitching the Y in the word You & I noticed when I got down so far that the bottom of the Y was going to end up a few stitches underneath the bottom border.  I knew then that something was terribly wrong, but where?  I had checked & checked & checked again!  I checked once more & there it was.  I had made an error & repeated it many, many times when stitching those little horizontal lines in the border underneath & on top of the pieces of pine.  I had counted 5 stitches going across & 4 on each diagonal.  Horror of horrors, I saw that I should have been alternating 5 stitches on the top horizontal lines with 6 stitches on the bottom lines!!!  Naturally this carried over to the right side of the border where I placed 5 stitches on all the vertical lines.  I felt sick.  I thought about frogging everything & starting again but frogging tiny stitches on 40 count fabric is not very appealing.  The thought of just throwing away a 7" square of lovely cream Newcastle linen makes me very unhappy, but not as unhappy as the thought of frogging those stitches.  Therefore, Good Tidings To You, which I have renamed Not So Good Tidings To You, is being sent off to the landfill.  I don't think I can face starting this design again, at least not now, so I am instead going to find something else to start. Wish me luck   : )

On a happier note, the mailman brought me a package yesterday from my dear friend Sally at Stitchyangel's Treasures.

I did a post a while back asking everyone about their favorite teas.  Sally mentioned how much she enjoys Twining's Lady Grey tea.  I had never heard of it.  She offered to send me a few bags to try.  I thanked her but didn't want her to spend the money for postage.  I told her I would look for it at my local market.  She told me not to do that ... what if I bought it & didn't like it?  I would have wasted all that money for a whole box of tea I didn't like.  She said she wanted to send me a few bags instead & I said okay. Well, Sneaky Sally not only sent me a few bags of tea, she sent me a little surprise as well!

Another Sampler Girl design!  I was so excited when I discovered this design & had to laugh because I had thought about stitching the same design for Sally   : )   Thank you again dear friend!  I love it!

Incidentally, the tea is very good   : )