WIP | Oh, Sharla

Last summer I started stitching my first HAED Sharla. I have a thing for mermaids and Hannah Lynn, so it was easy to choose my first HAED project:

I quickly realized it would take an entire lifetime to complete her stitching 1 over 1. This is as far as I managed to get with Sharla:

Not very impressive. I pondered for months whether I should switch to 2 over 1 tent stitch. I did some test stitching, and I really liked how the 2 over 1 tent stitches came out. I finally made the decision to frog what I had done and start over.

I gotta tell you - frogging that much 1 over 1 was a nightmare. To top it off, on my very last little 10x10 square I cut a thread on the fabric. I don't even know how I did it. There were some other close calls I could have understood if I broke the thread, but nothing bad should have occurred when it did.

My husband suggested I move Sharla down the fabric since the cut thread was on the top row of the pattern.  I got out the measuring tape to find out not only did I have enough room to move Sharla past the cut thread, I probably had enough room to just move Sharla past the entire section I just frogged. I didn't need to frog any of it. I could have cut off the stitched portion or just flipped the fabric upside down.

In the end I wound up flipping the fabric upside down anyway. My cut thread is now at the bottom below where I will reach. That was a big lesson to me. Never, ever frog an entire piece without first measuring to see if I can just recut my fabric!

The good news is this is my best season for stitching: grand slam tennis time. The last two weeks the French Open has been on. Since men's matches are usually about 3-5 hours each, I can get in a lot of stitching time glued to the couch. This year's final match had 3 rain delays! Talk about getting in some stitching time. :)

This is my new progress picture of Sharla:

I'm loving the tent stitch so I'm happy I decided to start over.