2021 Tokyo Olympics Stitching Challenge Start #14

Only 2 more days after this one! But I have so many more starts... Rachel are we doing this for the Winter Olympics next year? XD

If you've been paying attention, Elle just made it through to the finals of the 1500m race, so she'll run that today I think. There's one Canadian that got through as well, so maybe one of the people I'm particularly cheering for will make it onto a podium. 

How about today we talk about steeplechase? I've never attempted this event either, whether on horseback or not. My first experience with steeplechase was in the movie A Day at the Races featuring the Marx Brothers. I didn't understand why you'd put horses through that and still don't really, but the human version is an interesting test of strength and stamina. 

There has been a steeplechase race of some sort in the Olympics since 1900. Initially there were 2 races, one of 2500m and the other of 4000m. They standardized the distance to 3000m in 1920. Women's steeplechase wasn't added until 2008. The Wikipedia page talked a lot about doping, so apparently that's been an issue for this kind of race. 

Today's start is another non-seasonal one, another choice from the Crossed Wing Collection pamphlet. Again, the cover photo looks like this:

I've chosen the largest and most complicated design for this start, Hummingbird Garden. I didn't have a great amount of stitching time last night, so here's my start:

Hummingbird Garden by Crossed Wing Collection

stitched 2 over 2 as charted on 28ct Largesse by Chromatic Alchemy

I quite like this fabric for this design. I was trying to figure out the right colour as I do tend to use a lot of blue fabric in my stitching, and then this one arrived as the FOTM club for last month. It's just about perfect since it has an aura of blue with clouds, but also the golden touches like sun reflected by clouds at the golden hour (the hour before dusk or before dawn). 

We tend to only see hummingbirds around this time of year when they come to drink out of our hostas. We have a ton of hostas, it's a very hardy plant in this climate and survives pretty much neglect in some cases. I try and clean them out every spring so they get a good start, but I don't think it would matter if I didn't since they survive almost anything. 

Of course we don't put up hummingbird feeders either, again, bears! So we can't attract them any other way right now, and they certainly don't winter over up here in the Northeastern USA. And if you think I'm kidding about bears, 2 years ago, our neighbour that's 5 houses down had their garbage can destroyed by a bear and everyone was yelling to stay in the house when it came through. There's some woods at the back of our subdivision and the bears don't live back there, but they travel through sometimes. We haven't had one at our house yet, but we live a little further from the woods. We do have skunks, including a mother and babies that trapped DH up on the swim deck last month. He was swimming in the evening since it was so hot and when he was about to come in, they crept out from under one of the sheds. So he stayed up on the deck until they went elsewhere. The skunks don't always live there, they have several dens around, but I'm always really loud when I come home when it's dark just to make sure I don't get hit. One of our dogs was skunked several years ago. It was awful!

On that note, keep your eyes peeled for those black and white smelly ones, at least in North America, because I think the badgers are the black and white animal to watch out for in Europe. Not stinky, but plenty dangerous. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch