Cross Stitched Duck--First Finish 3rd Quarter

Cross stitch kit

This cross stitch project has been on my to do list several times and for a number of quarters over the last few years. My friend, Martha, had two of these in her stash. I finished and posted about the first one, May 3, 2020! This is the third project from the little basket of projects that I have finished. I plan to work on embellishing the log cabin block with embroidery stitches next as I started that project last January!

I have a friend that I plan to gift the first project to in December. I have another friend that I plan to gift the second project to at the end of September. 

The kit contained plenty of threads to stitch the picture. This time, I worked to slant all my stitches to the left as that is what it looks like in the directions. I've made some needlepoint projects and those stitches were all supposed to slant to the right!

Finished cross stitch design

Over four days, I worked on this project. I haven't done much cross stitch; but, there has to be some hack/hint to track the stitches better. There were a number of times that I realized that I was off a stitch or two and so I got to unstitch and restitch the section. Consequently, the
unstitching and restitching add to the hours that it took to finish this project! Gertie, my inner squirrel, convinced me that I'd finish the project in a few hours. Her time was way under estimated!

I decided to make it into the refrigerator magnet. I'm happy to have finished it. I do like having small handwork projects for the evenings and to take with me when I travel. (After our coast trip, Gertie is ready to travel more. I, however, am not!) Our county fair was this week, I entered the finished magnet and won a third place ribbon! 

This was goal number four on my August list. I didn't mention this project on my third quarter goal list!

 

Regarding COVID:

Worldwide: 211M cases; 4.42M deaths

United States: 37.7M cases; 628K deaths

Oregon: 253K cases, 3,033 deaths

Finished as a refrigerator magnet

In Oregon, the governor is requiring all K-12 educators and staff as well as all healthcare workers to be vaccinated by October 18 or by six weeks after full FDA approval of the vaccine. Yes, there is an exemption allowed for religious or medical reasons which has to be approved. Workers not complying with the requirement will lose their jobs, the media reported on Thursday. 

Elective surgeries are again being postponed because there is no space/staff to provide care. Wednesday, 2,941 new cases of COVID were reported. This is the record number ever reported in a day. This number surpassed the previous high which was reported last November. Eighty-six percent of those cases are unvaccinated. The number of breakthrough cases is rising at 14 percent; but less than six percent of the those cases end up in the hospital. Likely, more than immunocompromised individuals will be encouraged to receive a booster shot.