I got a bit behind with my blackwork SAL, this is the one designed by Peppermint Purple with a block released each week, There is a recommended colour scheme which is rather nice, but I decided in January to make mine into a picture of Catbells. Last time I shared my progress here was at the end of September I had just started on the reflection of Catbells…

I’d hardly looked at it since then as I was concentrating on the Jacquie needlecase and the seaside quilt when ever I had hand-stitching time. I took it to my Skipton Stitchers meeting on Monday and caught up on a couple of blocks and since then I’ve caught up for October, just a couple of weeks behind in November…

I’m trying to do the reflections of the lake in varying shades of grey, greeny grey, purply grey, blue grey…you get the idea! It’s proved harder to choose the colours than the actual mountain, it’s not quite coming out as I’d hoped but I also think with these blackwork designs you really need to stand back to see the effect. I’ve also learnt that blackwork and alcohol is not a good combination! I stitched the bottom right hand square on Saturday night after half a bottle of wine and a couple of G7T’s, I then had to undo a lot of it as there were so many mistakes!! It’s still not perfect but it’s good enough for me!

I’m hoping to catch right up by the end of the month and hopefully stitch a bit more of the first border. I’m still pondering about whether or not to outline Catbells to make it show up again, I think I’ll wait until it’s finished and then stick it to my design wall for a few days, looking at it from a distance usually helps. This stitch-a-long finishes at the end of the year, by then I’ll have stitched 52 different blackwork squares.