Deep Peace progress and some non-stitchy stuff

I  finally finished the border of Deep Peace!
Whoopee!

The berries are made up of Smyrna stitches. I am not totally happy with the way all of the leaves came out. They are done with a satin stitch. On some of the leaves, the center line did not work out exactly perfectly, but I am not going to change them! I prefer to look at them as a "variation occurring in nature" ! LOL!

Here is how it looks so far:

Now, on to the illumination!

The entire D is to be overlayed in cross stitch, using two strands of gold cord. Thankfully, the stitching is one over two threads. The underlying stitching is all one over one!

I finished the border very late last night, so I only made a small start on the gold work. Only the very first row at the top of the D is done completely. The second row is done in one direction.

Click to get a better view of the gold stitching

The cord has to be very short. I am using an 18" length, folded in two. The cord has to be looped to the needle so the two strands don't move around. The stitching has to be done vertically with a quick jabbing and stabbing motion. This takes a bit of getting used to. The length has to be very short because it frays easily.The idea is to lay the strands down side by side, so more of it is illuminated. Well, you know how that goes! It is very hard to keep it from twisting and laying down on top of each other! I am doing the best I can, but all bets are off here! LOL!

The real problems will begin when I start working with the purl. That is very slow, fastidious work. It has to be couched all along the outline of the letter. Well, I am getting ahead of myself. I have a long way to go just covering the initial first!

I was hoping to be working on some Christmas designs by now. I had no idea this one would take so long. Hopefully I will be able to sneak in a little ornie before the season is upon us!

Now for some other stuff.
Most of the chickens are now laying on a regular basis. Gertie, one of our "Easter Eggers", presented us with this little prize:

A Blue-green egg !

We still have about 5 chickens that haven't laid an egg yet. Not sure what's up with that. Hopefully they will catch up.

I spent quite a bit of time working on some signs.

I have a great respect for anyone who makes signs! No one knows how much work is involved! It really took a long time. I'm sure that someone who really knew what she was doing could have done it much faster.
Unfortunately, I'm not so sure the sign shows up well enough. It looks rather small out by the driveway.

I also had to design a simple label for the egg cartons (hmmm, not so simple)!.

So far we have sold 5 dozen eggs, and of course we have given some away to friends and family.

We were hoping to have another honey harvest this week, but Keith says there isn't that much honey in the hives. The bees need what is there to make it through the winter.
We have been selling the summer honey on a regular basis, but only have about 18 bears left now.

 It's so pretty! Don't you think? I hate to see the end of it.

WOW! I lead such an exciting life! LOL!

By the way, I have added my blog reading list to the side bar. I don't know what happened when I did this, but not all the blogs made the transfer. I am adding them as I find them. If I am a reader of your blog, please don't be offended. It is just techno-fizzle with blogger!

This has been a very long post. Congrats if you have made it all the way through it!
I will be back soon to let you know how the gold work is coming along.