A New Start- Houses of Hawk Run Hollow

I am not one who enjoys starting projects. I know that puts me in a minority, it seems, but that's the truth. It's not so much that I don't like starting, it's that I don't like gathering materials and putting it all together. I prefer just stitching on them!  I did, amazing as it is,  start and finish Mary Ann Blackburn already this year, so I am in a full swing stitching frenzy compared to my usual self.

Just about two weeks ago I started the Houses of Hawk Run Hollow.  It's been a lot of fun so far. I am tracking my hours of stitching on this one. This is something I used to do all the time, starting way back in the days of being an active participant in the Yuku Rotation Stitch Board.  That was long, long ago.

I'm amazed at how large this project will be in the end.  I started with the block that's in the second row, third to the right. The houses I am thus working on are rather small compared to the houses that are in many of the other blocks.  I truly had no concept of the size of this until starting. I love the hot air balloon in this block, and look forward to getting to that at some point in the next few weeks or so.

Here's a few photos to show the project, threads, and progress so far.

The completed project:

All the DMC colors for the project. I had to buy quite a few, even though my floss collection is quite large! 

My very first stitches on  this project look rather forlorn at this point. 

A bit more progress: 

Here's how it looked this morning when I finished a small stitching session:

Finally, I wanted to share this photo of Quaker Diamonds framed and hanging. For  years we had my great-great grandma's 1839 sampler hanging where Quaker Diamonds is now displayed. For now I will keep it this way.  I moved my great-great grandma's sampler to another part of the living room. This is my 'stitchy view' while in this room of the house.  Our television is to the right, and our front window is off directly to my left.  It's a very relaxing place to spend time. 

Thanks for stopping by today.