Week Thirty-Eight: It's fall, y'all

I'm a creature of habit, so it's exciting to me that the Great British Bake Off (GBBO) is back for another season. It started live last week in the UK and new episodes are available on Fridays on Netflix. I like to watch the show on Sunday mornings in my pjs and with some coffee. The Scottish contestants are my favorite so far (it's probably the accent) and I enjoyed the first episode. The return of GBBO also signals the beginning of fall, which of course, is the best time of the year. It's already starting to get cooler and I can buy any number of apple, maple, toasted pecan, and cinnamon flavored thing in the store (I'm not a pumpkin spice person unless it's a candle). 

It also means there are only three months and one week left in this year's 365 project. This year's project has no real plan except for it to exist, so I've been enjoying the looseness of doing this project. It's given me more confidence in creating random things and I enjoy seeing how the stitches come together. I thought I'd stick with the section we're on now until the end of October, but I've decided to change things up for the remaining three months of the project. Next week will be the last week you'll see the stitch journal in the large hoop. More to come on what will happen for the last three months when we get to the first week of October. 

Last thing before we get to the recap and a finished project: holiday ornaments.

I'm going to have thread left from the 2021 project and I don't want to waste it. That was the point of using the thread for the stitch journal. I'm planning on making holiday ornaments out of the remaining thread. I haven't decided on which shapes, but here's an example from 2020:

Cat not included, but you get the idea.

If you'd like an ornament, please complete this form so I have your contact information. I plan to send them out in November.

Here's this week's recap:

September 18: Purple Etoile back stitches - That's how a week should start.

September 19: Long line of green back stitches. As I shared last week, I'm trying to round out this section and these longer lines help to close spaces in this section of the fabric.

September 20: I went to the office on Tuesday and facilitated a few training sessions, so I had a really good day, but I was also frustrated throughout the day about other things at work so my trainer's high was diminished quite a bit. French knots were obviously what needed to be done.

September 21: Gray stem stitch - I'm getting better with curvy stem stitch lines! This pleases me.

September 22: Fighting the gloomy day with a line of yellow back stitches.

September 23: My habit of creating unintentional shapes continues this time with a cat taking a nap. The line of pink back stitches I added helped create the cat shape before going off on their own to fill out more of the right side of this section.

September 24: Is it a river? Is it a row of chain stitches? Who knows?

Finished project

I finished the cicada kit this week too. I bought this kit last year when the 17 year cicadas were hanging around. I think I'm the only person who enjoyed the cicadas. The kit is from Rabbit Hat Designs. The kit was a special offer last year, but you can still purchase the PDF pattern if you want to make your own lovely cicada.