Stitching Progress Updates

This was the last photo I showed you of With Thy Needle & Thread Give Thanks. It is one of my Crazy January Challenges.  A beautiful start on 28 ct linen. But I started off completely wrong and stitched the first pumpkin over 2 threads :(  So, out came the frogs and I re-started it. (Nobody told me that I needed to read the front cover :)

 See below-

This is the design I pulled out when I got frustrated with the L'Atelier Perdu mystery (32 ct linen stitched over 1).  As you can see I actually got quite a bit stitched. After trying 4 different counts/types of linen for the mystery project, I ended up with 28 ct evenweave-see results below!!

I also changed from my preferred size 26 needle to a size 28 needle-that helped tremendously.  The evenweave seems to be more stable and I didn't need to baste some interfacing under it to prevent losing stitches.  Thank heaven for my 3X lighted magnifier though.  This would be impossible for me with just my bifocals.  Altogether a very acceptable solution to my thorny problem! 

Thanks so much for all your hints/suggestions/ideas!