Octagons A & C Completed

I finally went back to working on Spirit of the Southwest this weekend. I've been hesitant to work on it because every time I do, I wake up the next day with pain in my right hand and arm. Luckily this didn't happen this time around.

First off, I finally finished stitching Octagons A and C. I haven't been wanting to work on this because of the section of diagonal stitches in the lower right corner (left for octagon C). Anchoring the beginning of the thread under the stitches was really hard.

Octagon A

I noticed as I was working that the stitches in Octagon C look better than the ones in A. I don't know if it's because of the direction of my stitching (I'm stitching this with the frame upside down) or just the thread shines differently (which is the whole point of this pattern). But I do see a difference and I really don't fell like redoing A. So as far as I'm concerned it's done.

Octagon C

I started on Octagon B. The first step is this Eiffel tower looking thing. It's a tent basket weave stitch. The pattern came with a diagram, but I didn't really understand it so I googled it. I found the steps strange, but followed them anyways.

Eiffel tower. The left side looks nicer than the right. weird!

It wasn't until I turned the canvas to finish off my thread that I realized why it was called a tent basket weave stitch. The steps that I found so strange were creating an actual basket weave pattern on the other side of the fabric. How cool is that!

Back of the Eiffel tower

Here is what it looks like so far. Sorry the picture doesn't look that nice. I took it twice and it still looks angled. This is because I'm still stitching with the canvas upside down. Once I'm done with Octagon B, I'll flip it back and take a better picture.