VERY LONG TERM PROJECT

 When "Anniversaries of the Heart" first came out, I said "No way. It will take forever". Well, after seeing it in progress several times, I decided it was worth the time and money. I've been working on it for over a year and am finally seeing progress.

Excuse the lousy photos. I took them with my iphone.

These are the first two rows. I haven't started the last. Last night I decided to stretch the piece out to see the size and such. BOY! Is it big! I tea-dyed the fabric myself, so it is a little faded looking-deliberately!

I've been heavily into research and thanks to some cousins and my brother-in-law, the genealogy work is almost finished.

Here we go:

This is what has been done on January, February, May and June. I've finished May. It's Michael's month.  I added some fishy stuff because he is a Marine Biologist. And, of course, his graduation from Alabama..January is finished but for the dates and February, too. June is still hanging around. I'm adding some historical dates, as you can see. When you look closely at February, you can see some initials and dates. I was working on it the  the day my MIL and my SIL died, so I added them to the piece.

I found a pattern for July that I liked better (by the same designer) and since it's America's birthday, I subtracted some stitches to make it fit and came up with this. It was also an active month in my family, so I'm going to add dates as I go along. I found out that with May that might be a good idea!

This is a closer look at March and April. March is Laura's month, so the fleur de lis (she is an Hebert, too) is there and LSU. I just need to find out what year she graduated..April is John's month, so his dates will go there. Also it was the month the Titanic sank, so it will be there, too. Since they live in Texas, the date of the Alamo is ready to put into place.

So.....how much longer, who knows? It's the only cross stitch piece I'm working on right now and has pretty well taken over. I'm using the overdyes called for plus some I've added.

If you look closely at February, you can tell that my MIL died a year ago today. Maybe that explains all this work. I'm more aware of family and time now, and hope in the years to come, my family will enjoy this BIG piece of my life.