Week Forty: Baby hoop

As I shared last week, I've gotten to the point in this year's project where it was time to retire the big hoop and move to a smaller one. Moving to a smaller hoop has been a little bit of an adjustment this week, but I think it's going to be more manageable for the rest of the year. I'm traveling next week (more on this in a minute) and it's definitely going to be easier to travel with. The big hoop was a challenge when I went to Detroit back in May. 

One of my favorite things about working on this stitch journal has been all the unexpected shapes and patterns that emerge from my random stitching. As someone who is more Type A than not, it's nice to do something where I don't plan. It's in the unexpected moments of this piece that I've felt the most creative. This week's entries fit right into this and I'm excited to see how they're taking shape in this smaller section of the piece. 

Here's this week's recap:

October 2: It wasn't until today that I realized the addition of the purple chain stitches made it appear like two figures dancing.

October 3: maybe another unintentional cat will emerge from the little triangles at the start of this line.

October 4: A mountain of French knots.

October 5: Gold chain stitches are so happy looking.

October 6: I haven't used blue thread in forever, so I added some blue back stitches.

October 7: running stitch always reminds me of roads or trails. Fitting since I'm going on a trip next week. 

October 8: I don't use black thread often for the journal, but I have a lot of it so I need to start using it more. This is one of the longer entries in terms of connecting around a large section of the piece. There are some nice shapes here and some space to build more interesting shapes and lines.

This mini section is coming together nicely! You can also see some of the back of the piece too. Next time I take the fabric out of its hoop, I'll take a better photo of the back.

I'm heading to Santa Fe, New Mexico on Monday for a little fall break trip. This is my first time in New Mexico and I'm super excited. I bought a passport notebook back in August and decided to take it with me to document my trip. I used the Cricut earlier this week to create some stickers for the cover. I will be taking the stitch journal with me as well; my posts on Instagram will be a little later in the day depending on what we're doing. More on the trip in next week's recap blog!