And Mercy makes three.....

Three SALs that is! For the uninitiated, SAL=Stitch-a-long, which is where a group of stitchers are all working on the same piece at the same time- although rarely at the same rate, lol!

To the left is the headless wonder: it reminds me of all those popular stamps of women without heads! Of course when finished, she will have a head!

This is as far as I got before I put this piece away many years ago. I have been thinking for a while about getting her out, but never got around to it. Then I stumbled into a SAL for this and had to join. Of course, being in 3 SALs at the same time is craziness, but what else is new?

What you are looking at here is a BAD picture of most of the dress of Marilyn Leavitt-Inblum's Angel of Mercy. There are several stories connected to either MLI or this angel. If you are unfamiliar with Marilyn's work you can see it HERE at her website. The background on the design and publication of this angel are HERE.

I started cross stitching back in the mid-80s, with a book of tiny designs. On a trip to Myrtle Beach I visited The Counting House, the fabulous and sadly no-longer-there shop in Pawley's Island. That is where I first saw models of MLI's work and I was blown away.

When I saw the Angel of Mercy I knew I had to stitch her. I intended to give it to the order of nuns who educated me in high school in honor of two very special Sisters who made a life-long imact on me. The first one was long deceased before I ever thought of this and the second sister died unexpectedly while I was still working on it. That's when I put it away.

Now it's time to put her back into rotation. I want to finish the Sekas Watercolour Dragonflies soon- all I need is to do the bodies as soon as the special thread arrives from Nordic Needle. Then I can fully concentrate- or at least as much as *I* am able to- on the Beatrix Potter Quaker Sampler SAL, Aury's Special Stitches SAL and this.

I'm putting my papercrafting aside for a little while, except if I go out to a crop or something like that. (Then I can use one of my pre-packed bags with a specific project already in them.) I have taken the so-called craft room from mere disaster to complete and utter chaos in my fervor to organize it. Right now I have a pretty good idea of where everything is, but in the process of pulling everything out so as to give everything a place, and then not having time to actually do the "placing", the room is now totally unusable and too many things are "temporarily" buried. While a stitching STASH can (and around here DOES) take up easily as much space as a papercrafting stash, the actual tools, equipment and space needed to work on one piece is quite small compared to all the things that are needed to do even a little cardmaking, scrapbooking or stamping. The stuff I need for the month at the shore will be accessible by then so it's only a short hiatus.

Time to go join DH for a little TV before bedtime. School is depressing and exhausting- can it really be that it is only Tuesday? At least there is, if the weather man is actually right this time, a WONDERFUL, glorious weekend to look forward to! In the meantime I will work when I must, stitch when I can, and wait for a beautiful spring day to come SOON!