African Dawn finally finished

I finished African Dawn last Thursday. Hubby was nagging me to get it finished. I wasn't keen and was making all sorts of excuses the most plausible one being lack of light. I can't backstitch brown on brown in dingy light! So he went out and bought me a new lamp, one with an uplighter and a separate reading lamp on a bendy arm. It gives out lots of light so I was a good girl and got on with the dreaded backstitch. In the end, I didn't do it anything like it was on the chart, the lines were all over the place and it would have taken forever, so I improvised. Besides, I didn't like the look of the backstitch on the cover picture and think my version is just as good. I'm not usually one for bringing my own interpretation onto designs, I have little imagination and prefer to follow other people's creativity. I'm the same with face painting; I can perfectly adequatly copy a design from a book but when it comes to inventing something myself I wouldn't know where to start. Anyway, African Dawn is finally finished and what a relief! I'll post a picture as soon as I get around to it.

Now I'm back working on the Apple Blossom fairies. I've worked on it a lot over the weekend, finishing one wing of the large fairy(which was about half done), the dress, the arm, face and most of the hair (photo to follow soon). Working on this project is such a pleasant reprieve from doing horrible backstitch, there's a lot of pink and white on a blue background, the contrast makes it easy, and enjoyable.

Its very unusual for me to only have one WIP. I can't think of a time when I ever did before! I think I'll always be inclined to have more than one job on the go at once, and I don't doubt that as soon as I get to a less enjoyable part of Apple Blossom Fairies, eg. the backstitch or the dreaded french knots, I'll shelve it again in favour of something else. Time will tell.....