I had a busy busy week this week, so I only worked on Mon Seul Desir for 6 hours (322 total). To be honest, I think I am suffering from Mon Seul Desir overdose. It is such hard work for such little progress, I think I need a break. I know already that I won’t finish this page in one month, so I am going to take it slow.

Oh, the major feature on this page is a bird, and the line you see going from halfway on the left side down to the center bottom line is it’s wing. Much bigger than the rabbit on the first page.

A couple hours late, but I did finish page 5 (the third full page of the top row). This pages feature is the first (left) flag. I love the detail!

I spent 18 hours on it this week (taking advantage of two days off), for a total of 316. I spent 94 hours on this page, so I guess it is safe to say I will spend 100 hours per page on average….

Some more stats: total stitches is now  approximately 21.000 (out of 347.100 total). That makes it about 6% out of the total. And what does that look like? Like this:

Due to work I couldn’t work on my stitching as much as I wanted (still spent 21 hours on it, for a total of 298). I worked on the bottom half, focussing on the red.

A big part of the red in the bottom center is part of the flag. The difference between the flag and background is not very clear now though the flag is a bit lighter, a bit more orange. The streak that separates flag from background is yellow/greenish, so that should make it clearer.

I don’t think I can finish the bottom this week, most of it is confetti, but I will try my best.

This week I finished up the top half of the third page with tons of confetti. That gave me a bunch of flowers and (in the middle) the top point of the flag. I also started the layout of the bottom half. Most of that half will be taken up by the flag, flanked by red with flowers and the last bit of the tree.

This week I spend 19,5 hours on the piece, for a total of 277 hours.

I worked some more on the top half of the third page (page 5) this week. Mostly red with a bunch of flowers and the top of the flag post in the middle. I think I have done all ‘big’ colors now, the rest is just confetti.

I spent 29.5 hours stitching this week, for a total of 257.5 hours. I have set myself a new schedule for stitching:

I will finish a page each month. Any leftover time will be spend on the next page, but this way I will try to finish one row a year. For this year the schedule comes to this:

Jan/Feb: Page 3
Mar: Page 4
April: Page 5
May: Page 6
June: Page 7
July: Page 8
August: Page 9 (end of row)
September: Page 10
October: Page 11
November: Page 12
December: Page 13

Lets see how far I can follow the schedule :D

This week was spend mostly preparing for the third page (page 5). I had a bunch of new colors to make, and thus had to buy more needles. This page is mostly red with a bit of the three and a flag with pole.

I spend only 6 hours stitching on this, with a total of 228 hours on the total piece now. From now on I will feature partly photos when I am working on a page; when a page is done I will undo the frame and take a pic of the whole thing.

Well, I did it! I finished page 4 (the second chart page) in three weeks + 1 day. I spent 31.5 hours on it this week, for a total of 222 hours :D That’s about 14.400 stitches. I guess finishing page 1 really motivated me.

Now it’s on to page 5 (of 56). I already started preparing and discovered 24 new blends to be used on that page. I guess tonight will be spent making them. I’ll probably need more needles too, and I will have to organise the needle organizer pretty well. The next page has the top of the first flag (on the left of the tent).