Well, I hope it doesn’t take me 5oo weeks to finish this “12 Days of Christmas” crossstitch project, but I’m afraid I’ve made less progress than I would like over the past two weeks.

When I started it, I thought I would stitch the entire border first and then fill in each space. But, it was so darn hard for me to keep track of where I was in the stitch count that I decided to focus on one rectangle at a time.

Just finishing this first rectangle took way longer than it should have. I kept counting and recounting and then I miscounted and stitched the bottom border two rows too early and had to rip it all out. Finally, I grabbed one of my fabric pens and added some grid lines to help me out.

Now I am starting on the partridge in a pear tree design, but this is as far as I have gotten:

I still have this fear that I miscounted somewhere, but I think it is okay. Once I complete this green border I will know for sure whether everything lines up correctly or not.