Time to experiment!

Well, its been horribly hot here for a while, so when I've not been at work, I've mostly been stopping in where its cooler.  I don't do well in weather like this - I don't sleep well and I lose my appetite.  On the bright side, it does mean more stitching time.

So first of all, I'll show you my experiment.
 

This is my HAED - Train of Dreams by Randal Spangler.  You've seen it before but not for a while because it went on hold while I worked on Enchanted Garden.  The experiment is the handful of threads in the bottom left hand corner.  Some of you will recognise this as the parking method, where you work across a row stitch by stitch, leaving each thread where it next appears on the chart.  It is a slow process, perhaps more so on this 25 count fabric, but it does have the advantage of not leaving any holes behind.  If you look just to the  left of the blue bell at the top right, you will see some little white specks.  These are places where I need to fill in with a different colour thread.  As I'm stitching 2 over 1 on 25 count, you can imagine how awkward and niggly it is to do fill-ins like that.  The bottom two blocks on the left have been stitched using the parking method. The new plan is to carry on to the bottom of the page, and then go back up and work down the next column, and so on across the page.  Do any of you use the parking method?  If so, do you have any useful tips?

Next up is Bouquet 3, which was the beneficiary of Patchwork Group on Thursday.  I am now three flowers down, and two to go before I start back stitching.  I just need to get a grip and stitch at lunchtime instead of reading other peoples' blogs.

 Last but not least is Carnation.  Another three blocks done means that I am just over halfway through row 3.  I did consider using the parking method on this, but as I am using blended threads as well as stitching across the page, I feel that it would complicate matters too much.

Nothing to show you on Mum's Angels this week, but I did lose 1lb at Slimming World so heading in the right direction again.

Well, its hot and sticky and my eyes are beginning to sting with tiredness, so I'm going to call it a day.  Wishing you and yours all the best for a great week ahead (and plenty of stitching time).