Gunther the magnificent is finished! Hooray!

My first post on Gunther was August 22, 2012.  I foolishly thought I would have his stitching finished by Christmas.  Silly Girl! 

But here he is, glorious and beautiful!

This is the view of his right leg with background so you can see that the background did indeed line up when I finished going around the outside.  Even though you know you can count and don't think you've skipped a row, there is still that uncertainty that it will line up.  YES!  

And just for the record, the last 3 stitches I took on him were the 3 French knots on the blue of his tunic.

And now for the great unveil:

I'm going to give him a place of honor at the shop for the next week or so where I can admire him (and so can others) before sending him to the finisher. 

Standing nutcracker, 14

Argghh!  I've been knocking myself out trying to stitch below Gunther's hands so I could move the canvas again on the stretcher bars.  I thought between some golf and the Super Bowl and Downton Abbey, I might accomplish my goal.  It was not to be, even before I took the photograph and discovered that I started stitching the second ribbon on his sash in the wrong green.  That's what comes of pulling fibers out of a bag without taking them all out so you can see the color sequence.  

I did the mosaic stitch for the lighter blue on the edging of his sleeves.  And I managed to complete almost all of the red bottom of his tunic.

The irony is that I was so concerned about getting the "hand" colors correct, that I wouldn't stitch on them late at night.  The colors just looked too similar.  (For those of you who wonder, my DH doesn't like the appearance of most lamps that are beneficial to stitchers.  Most of the time it doesn't make a difference so it's easy for me to acquiesce since he also lives here.)  He makes up for it in other ways.  In fact, this morning I forgot my sandwich and when I pulled into the shop parking lot after stopping at the post office, I thought to myself, that looks like Arthur's car.  When I got closer I started worrying about what had happened that he had come by.  But just a good deed delivery of the forgotten sandwich. 

Today I belatedly decided on my 2013 class schedule.  I'll be teaching classes on items that I have blogged about including Hearts; cuff bracelet; small flamingo canvas; poinciana tree, and the geometric sampler I designed utilizing watercolors.