Over one epiphany

Hello people!  I'm stitching the over one!  Slowly, but making progress.  I remember Barbara sent photos of how she stabilizes this type of stitch with a loose weave gauze on the back side.  Do you think I could find something similar to use in my mess?  So I am following the notes and tips that I've received from other helpful stitchers.  And it took a while for me to realize the easiest way to remember the rules.

What finally drilled its way through my thick skull, is the intersection.  That's all I need to see in order to lock the stitch and prevent that disappearing act.  My 1 and 2 cross is always the same direction, the loop behind runs the same as the intersection's linen thread.  If it's running horizontal, my thread from 2 to 3 does also, same with vertical.

Since the sewing method doesn't work with letters, I am doing one full stitch at a time.  If the end of the prior stitch would be the beginning hole for the following stitch, 1 and 2 are reversed but they are always top right bottom left.  And if I am wrong, please tell me.  I won't yell.  I had written instructions that I followed before which I saved, will look for this evening.   My biggest issue is forgetting what to do, which direction, the back leg, but this simplified it for me since it applies to one stitch at a time.  In fact, this may be what I did before, but do not remember.  One of the benefits of forgetting, everything seems new.

This brain breakthrough does not mean my stitches are neat, even, or acceptable, but since I can barely see with magnifiers these tiny PITA messes will not be noticed.  But they aren't disappearing behind the linen!  I did have to frog a few and that took longer than stitching.  The H is not as charted and will stay that way.  I wasn't paying attention.

I wanted to show you how you can change the look of a project you see online if you'd like to use a different color linen.  This Merry Wind Farm reproduction of Ellen Spedding uses linen that I don't care for.  So to get an idea of how it would look with a light beige or tan fabric, I saved the photo to Photo Gallery and used the fine tuning option, changing the slider for color, tint, and saturation.  I can now see if the change would be to my liking.  I tried a light gray too but prefer the beige.  

Last night, I was shot out of my chair by the most awful screaming.  It was Nit.  The newest orange/white stray that Petey is after was at the back door.  I never heard anything that loud and terrifying from a cat.  I chased it away but he/she has been hanging around, eating the deer's corn, and checking out Petey's houses.  I don't want another, and I do NOT want him hurt by mine.  I can't imagine what the neighborhoods in town are like where ferals are such a problem, the fights have to be vicious and there is no help for the injured and infected.  This may be mating season because this morning, there are two other cats sitting on the deck looking in.  Missy.  She is spayed, but that doesn't stop them I guess.

Hope your week is going well.
Thanks for visiting.

Just saw a comment that offers another thread catcher mat.  She is currently sold out.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/cattycrosstitches/sold

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