HappyDance Through the Stars!

I finally finished Through the Stars this weekend!  Which means I only finished it about 6 months late.  I consider that a huge win.  For those along playing along at home, one might remember that life blew up in my face in mid-March and I stopped stitching for a very long time.  For having only picked this back up in March of this year, I think I knocked it out fairly well.  Especially considering how much frogging I had to do with it!

The only alteration I made was stitching the gold in regular DMC 3820.  The kit had satin 3820 in it, but I was not about to work with satin floss again.  I briefly considered using a matching silk, but ultimately I don't think it really mattered much.  It's an adorable piece, not some sort of artisan museum thing where I had to make it as swanky as possible (or I would have made the stars glass beads).   Speaking of the kit:  It was more than generous, I had what looked like an entire skein of some colors left over.   As part of my Happy Dance Tradition, I always trash all of the regular floss from a kit (even though it is DMC), though I did save the WDW and put it in my organizer (you never know!).

So here's the whole thing!
Started 1 January 2015;
Finished 24 June 2016;
Stitched on 32 ct Gothic Belfast linen from Picture This Plus
Using DMC and Weeks Dye Works floss:

Aries is still the cutest.

And I was feeling lazy about detail shots, so here's just a whole bunch of the monthly shots as I finished them through the year & a half (dates might be off by a couple of days):

Initial frame: 18 February 2015

Capricorn: 21 Feb 2015

Aquarius 21 Feb 2015

Pisces 14 Mar 2016

Planets and frame symbols: 26 Mar 2016

Aries:  12 May 2016

Taurus: 15 May 2106

Sagittarius: 28 May 2016

Gemini: 16 June 2016

Scorpio: 18 June 2016

Libra: 18 June 2016

Virgo: 19 June 2016

Cancer: 24 June 2016

Leo: 24 June 2016

One of the things I discovered was that if the gold circle framing was all done, it took me about 4-5 hours to stitch each sign, which is nice.   It meant that when I was cruising along and SO CLOSE to being done with this piece on the plane, I knew I had about 2 hours left to stitch.

Leo was done after Cancer only because I had realized that I missed the two little stars near his right haunch there.   It's funny, though, because I thought if I did a couple/few extra signs, that would just mean I'd finish this piece in October instead of December or something - I did not anticipate zooming through this like I did!

I do appreciate the ability to stitch parts in discrete pieces.  I think that's part of my frustration with huge pieces sometimes - finding the times when I feel like I have accomplished something without actually having finished the whole thing.

And even more fun - I can tell you what TV show I was binging for each of the signs that I completed in 2016.  It's funny how that stuff sticks with you.

Now I've moved onto Tapestry, as a StitchALong with friends, so we'll see how far I get with that one before I get bored or move on to something else.