Around the World in 80 stitches SAL

At the end of 2014 when I decided to join the stitch only from stash group on Facebook, this was the last project I bought supplies to kit up.  Originally I think this design was a SAL from Papillon Creations in 2013. Coming to this party way late and getting to see some of the finished pieces made me excited to start stitching this.  There are two options for this design, a cross stitch version and a specialty stitch version.  Part of me really wanted to just do the cross stitch version.  But I decided that I needed to challenge myself because I only knew a couple of specialty stitches including French knots.  Then at some point someone in a cross stitch group I'm in on Facebook told me they were going to start a SAL of this design starting in May.  I was so excited because I've always wanted to be a part of a true SAL (Angie Designer was my first but I was always really far behind everyone else to count it) and here was my chance!  Since I had ordered a few options for the silk thread colors I decided to do a floss toss and see what colors would look best with my fabric.  Here is what that looked like as I started to prepare for the SAL at the end of March...

The fabric is a color called Jaded by Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie, and the flosses are hand dyed silk floss from Mo's Sale.  I don't know why but I decided to challenge myself not only with learning new specialty stitches, but also with using silk floss for the very first time too!

Well working with silk was a little different, but I sort of got the hang of it.  Here is where my stitching was when I decided to get a head start on the borders on April 23rd...

Part 1 is the two hearts and Part 2 is the sort of tulip looking flowers in between them.  Well even with the Earthquake and deciding to take some time with my children away from Nepal for a little bit, I did start stitching Part 1 in May like everyone else!  Here are my progress photos...

I finally finished Part 1 on June 18th! A little behind my goal of June 1st but a lot of life happened that I was still dealing with this summer... You can really see how much changes in lighting affect color especially with my fabric.  I've gotten a bit further since then but I'll share more progress with you later.  Until then...Happy Stitching!