3 Colors In...

Well, I finally finished the 3rd color on my HAED Challenge piece.  It took a bit longer than the first two for a couple of reasons.

1. There was more of this color
2. I had to deal with a pillow accident first

I'm guessing you're now wondering what constitutes a "pillow accident".  Trust me, it surprised me too!  Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos.

A couple of times a year, I wash my and hubby's pillows.  They are feather pillows so I always do it first thing in the morning to give them plenty of time to dry.  Hubby's pillow was exceptionally nasty so I let them both soak in the washer while the dryer was finishing up one of the blankets.

At this point, everything's fine.  The pillows are having a lovely soak and the rest of the bedding is all clean and back on the bed.  I restarted the washer and the pillows did a little shaking, rinsing and spinning.  Since the pillows tend to "hold on" to the water, I ran them through another spin cycle.  Apparently, that's where I went wrong.  They were dizzy enough already and hubby's decided to protest against such violent treatment and decided to split...literally!

When I opened the washer, my pillow was sitting there like "I told him not to do it!"  Hubby's pillow was plastered all around the wash tub.  It was this huge round mat of chicken feathers with bits of fabric thrown in!

I took out my poor traumatized pillow and threw it in the dryer.  Then I scraped hubby's pillow off the inside of the washing machine and dumped it on top of the dryer.  I finally found the pillow ticking plus the original pillow ticking (I'd re-covered it years ago).  It had split down the middle of the fabric - not at the seams, they were fine.

So before I could cross stitch on Wednesday night, I had to make a new pillow and stuff it with the pile of feathers.  They were still damp so thankfully, they didn't fly off everywhere.  I tried to get the "new" pillow completely dry in time for hubby to use it that night, but the feathers were having none of that.

Last night, I made sure the pillow was dry after sitting in the sun most of the day.  Then I had to make a pillow case for it 'cause it's not a standard sized pillow anymore.

So after all that, I was able to get some cross stitching in.  I finished the 3rd color and made a good start on the 4th.  Here's my progress after 3:

Happy Stitching!

Stacy