I finished this step

 

I finally completed the stitching on the Ukrainian stitch-along. True to my over-achiever tendencies, I decided I wasn’t going to use just 1 stitch for the small squares of red in the corner, so I doubled the stitch count. That meant I was stitching 4 instead of 1 for those squares; 16 insteadof 4 for the center; and a ton more for the yellow. I was confident that I would have enough floss as I settled on 18 count Aida for the fabric. As I stitched the center, I found a rhythm of peaceful, hopeful thoughts. So far, so good.

I liked the heart motif of the original but found the dove element just didn’t work for me. Like almost all folk art I know of, each use of a figure, each color has a meaning. One day as my hands were too tired to stitch, I went down the Internet rabbit hole looking at the History of Folk Art from the Ukraine. I decided that the dove had to go. I also decided I needed to tat 4 hearts to sew on the surface of the stitching. To make it really show up, I completed the background field in black.

I found a heart in Teri Dusenbury’s book, Tatting Hearts, that made sense. I tatted a sample in size 30 thread. Too big for the area available as designed. I’d already started stitching the corner and liked it, so I went hunting for a better thread. None of my size 80 thread matched the floss, so I went looking at the sewing thread I have. Bingo! Now to finish tatting the 4 hearts and sew them on.

The final thought I have for today: yes, there is a fair amount of cat fur trapped in the stitches. My pet sensed I needed support and help to work through this project. I couldn’t say no. Her purring in my lap did make the stitches better. For those that can’t tolerate pet hair in stitching projects, “Move along, these are not the droids you’re looking for.”