Plodding ever forward

Gone are the hours of tiny-baby naps and maternity leave.  Summers around here are lean times, so I've committed to finishing a project that will require no more expenditures to complete, which I expect to happen sometime around 2017.  Baby sometimes gives me time in the evenings, when this comes out. 

Two corners are done and there are about 1.5 to go.   When I can work on it for an hour or so, it seems to be going fast.  And it probably is going fast, but it's so huge that even fast equals hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of work.  As I stitch, I sit there and think about whether I will get my 10,000 hours of expertise all crammed into this one object. My hand stitching is getting a lot better, and it's kind of cool to have all my experience thus far all together. 

For a while there, I was worried about whether the thread was going to last, because it occurred to me about 1/3rd of the way into this that it will be hard to replace. 

Because, as you can see, it's made by a company that may not exist anymore and cost $0.90 originally.  I probably swiped it from my mom's sewing basket about 17 years ago, and it was chewed by a dog since then.  One complete corner seems to take about one height of the spool's worth of thread, so right now I'm guessing I won't run out.

There's a plain pair of socks in progress for working on while I'm on the phone at work.  The first one is reaching the toe, so I need to take some time to decide exactly when to start it and it would be awkward if someone at work came into my office when I've got my sock and shoe off and am trying on a sock on the needles.  Probably should bring that home for just a bit.

Happy crafting!  If you don't hear from me for a while, assume I'm on hour 6,000 of hand quilting.