I’m participating in Stitching Olympics competitions at two separate message boards this month. Unfortunately the attempt on Life’s a Stitch for a stretch of 5×5 square stitching is off to a slower start due to a TON of frogging, but I’ll be bringing that piece into my rotation this week.

Over on The Wagon, however, I’ve been making some great progress. The competition I’m entered in is the Rotation Relay. Basically… work a minimum of 2 hours on a piece, and move on to the next in your personal rotation. So far I’ve worked on a LOT of pieces, as you’ll see. I’ve intentionally started with pieces that hadn’t been touched since I picked up stitching again back in October.

“Before” photos are on the left (most taken on January 28th to document the challenge). “Afters” are on the right. (photos pop)

Noah’s Ark

Hours: 3
Round finished on: 7 February 2010
It may be tricky to see, but all of my work on this piece were done on the ostrich panel at bottom center. It’s all over-one stitching and most was off-white on white (ick!).

Magical Night

Hours: 2
Round finished on: 8 February 2010
I would have done more on this piece, but I’m oddly missing a LOT of colors that I could have sworn I had. As of now, I’m planning on sending this piece around for the UFO Round Robin that’s kicking off on March 15th.

Elemental Dragon: Spirit

Hours: 4
Round finished on: 15 February 2010
Hooray! This piece is now finished aside from backstitching. I’ll be tackling that the first week of March once this competition’s over to get it done.

Smoky Mountain Cats

Hours: 5
Round finished on: 13 Feb 2010
I wound up spending more time on this than expected because it was in my bag for an extra-long commute. But hey, it’s more done in a very large field of blue.

Garden Sampler

Hours: 2.5
Round finished on: 11 February 2010
I’m working the piece on the left. I’ve discovered the piece on the right was simply some motif experimentation, so I’ll probably keep it for similar practice. This was a piece that I got out of Erich’s mom’s stash as we cleaned through her belongings about 18 months ago. She started it in colors that don’t match the pattern – I didn’t bother switching the green, as they’re only about a shade off from each other. I did, however, pick the flower out so I could match it to the rest of the pattern. It’s not my general stitching style, but it stitches fast – I expect I’ll enjoy it a lot.

Walk in the Woods

Hours: 2.5
Round finished on: 12 February 2010
This is another piece found in Erich’s mom’s stash. Again, not my normal style, but I do plan on finishing it. It’s stitching pretty quickly. I’m missing a couple colors. I do admit that I adore the top border.

So not bad so far!

Up this week in my list:
The “Hush Hush” piece for Life’s a Stitch
Home is Where the Cat Is
Legends of the Dragons
Spring Queen

I’m seriously considering rotating somewhat like this for the rest of the year – it definitely seems to be a fun way to rotate, essentially picking up a different piece every night.