Crazy January Challenge - Weekend Edition

Tonight is a two for one! I didn't get a chance to post my minimal progress from yesterday's new start, so tonight I'm sharing both Day Twelve and Day Thirteen!

For Day Twelve, I selected St. Peter's by John Clayton International by Heritage Stitchcraft. Adding to the Italian theme of my pieces shouldn't surprise any of my followers who have seen my work on Italian Vista or European Bistro, but this piece has a personal connection. When my husband and I were sophomores in college in the fall of 1999, we spent a semester in Rome with half of our class, and we also went back for a week in 2005 before we got pregnant with our first child. I absolutely adore Rome and would love to retire there, and St. Peter's Cathedral is my favorite place in the city. We are Roman Catholic, so of course St. Peter's has a religious significance for me, but it's just an amazingly gorgeous and inspirational place, regardless of your faith. It is humbling to walk into that Cathedral and see the work that was done by human hands, and I've actually walked to the top of the dome twice (an amazing feat for someone with an extreme fear of heights), and the view of Rome is breathtaking. So when I saw this piece, I knew I had to stitch it:

For a variety of reasons, including Girl Scout cookie season starting and going out to see Les Miserables (LOVED IT!), I didn't get much done yesterday:

But any progress is progress, right? I'll supplement this mini progress with a few other of my favorite pictures of the real St. Peter's. Forgive the scanned pictures from 1999 - no digital cameras when I went to Rome in college!\

View of the Dome from the gardens of Vatican Museum - 1999

The Dome! 1999

View of Rome from the Dome - 1999

The Dome again - 2005

Me in front of the dome - 2005

Both the Sistine Chapel Ceiling and The Last Judgement pieces from HAED are in my "To Do Someday" pile...they may be additions for the 2014 CJC!

For today's project, I had a couple of firsts! My first Joan Elliott piece as well as my first time to work on the beautiful fabric from Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie. Day Thirteen's project is Sweet Pea Fairy by Joan Elliott:

And here is today's progress:

I'm stitching this two over two on beautiful jobelan in Fairy Dance and my picture hardly does the fabric justice. I absolutely adore the colors already and working on the piece today was a pleasure. I have two more Joan Elliott pieces on Stephanie's fabrics to round out the CJC. If they're anything like this one, it's going to be a true pleasure to wrap up these first fifteen days of January!

Until next time!
~Katy