Chicken Scratch

I was finally able to complete this project, after I'd finished the Time Socks, while riding in the car and later, listening to stories.

It was a trifle boring, to tell the truth.

Also, the instructions? Not so good.

It occurred to me, about halfway through the second heart, that I'd seen it done some other way than row-by-row. I wasn't at home, so I couldn't reference my imagined source, but I was fairly certain that it could be done as a more whole-area sort of thing.

I meant to take pictures of this in progress, but the camera didn't seem to be to hand when I needed it, so I'll just have to try to describe what I did.

First, you'll work the border of the design in the second color. Work the Smyrna stitches either one-at-a-time or in rows, depending on your outline/area.

Switch to the main color. Now, instead of working the cross-stitch portions of the Smyrna stitch in a row, like you would in cross-stitch, work on the diagonal, and do the first half of the stitch throughout the entire piece, working it more like a running stitch, going from corner to corner of the gingham.

Then, complete the other half of the cross-stitch in a similar manner, working in the opposite diagonal.

Work side to side in running stitch on every row to complete the horizontal stitches, then top to bottom (or the other way 'round) to complete the vertical stitches.

The last step, where you run the threads under the horizontal and vertical stitches to make a circle, is done one circle at a time.

The back looks much neater when done this way, I think.

on the left, continuous stitching
on the right, done row-by-row