Happy New year and a progress photo

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and hoping that this coming year is better than last year.  

After putting the rug aside for a little bit to take a break from it after all of my mistakes, I finally picked it up again last week.

This time, I found I was able to do the border correctly if I worked about an inch and a half of the black border, then the corresponding inch and a half of the red up the sides.  This way I found the mistakes much sooner than if I only worked on one of the borders.  Once I got close to the right side black border I continued in the red until I hit the corner.  This helped me place the corner correctly.  

The left side was still giving me problems with the black border and I couldn't stomach the idea 

 of un-picking it all over again, so I took a scary plunge and carefully cut off the top half of the left black border and added a patch of gauze.  The patch overlapped the red section (underneath before the upper half of the red was stitched) along with about 1/4" of the black border and allowed me a clean slate to stitch it again without taking the risk of putting holes in the gauze if I un-picked again.  I tack-stitched it into place and stitched the red part of the border in one and a half inch increments and the black border in the same increments afterwards.  To make the transition of the black border seamless near the center, I un-picked about 1/4" of the black border, then re-stitched it to catch the patch in it as well.  As I completed parts of the red border, I removed the tack stitches so that I wouldn't have to try and stitch over top of them.

This time, the black border went without difficulty and I was able to reach the upper corner. Finally!!

The patch that I put in is not visible now that I have stitched it in place with the red and, since it overlaps about 1/2 inch, it is good and strong.  In this photo, it is only visible above the left corner, where you can still see the tack stitches.  The black stitching across the middle of the red border are to hold the bottom edge of the patch in place so it wouldn't move as I stitched the red border.  When I complete the rug and do the overcast stitch at the end, you won't see it at all, either from the front or the back.

Doing this patch saved me hours of un-picking and frustration as well as saving me from having to start the rug over again.  I still seemed to make mistakes regularly along both sides of the border but was able to catch them very quickly and fix them before I got too far.

Once my two upper corners were in place, I was able to work the top red border fairly easily and, miracle of miracles, I didn't make a mistake across the top!!

I am hoping the rest of the rug goes smoothly now that I have completed the worst of the borders.  Looking back, I have been wondering how I made so many mistakes when I have never done so to such an extent before.  Part of it, I think, is that I am using 48 count gauze for the first time after getting used to 40 count.  This can make it difficult to see the individual holes.  Another part, I think, is that I need new glasses.  Luckily, I have an optometrist visit coming up in 3 days so this should be fixed soon.  The last part of the problem, I believe, is the fact that my Grandmother died just before I started this rug and I was emotionally and physically exhausted.  Note to self: Don't do any complicated patterns when exhausted!  I put it aside for a few weeks to work on some less demanding miniature projects and came back to it feeling much better and was able to problem solve and stitch it with much less difficulty.

​I have learned a lot with the stitching of this rug so far and am now back to loving stitching it.