Speed Stitching WIP 6

This is for the speed stitching contest at
Speed Stitching Race: BEGINWelcome to Stitching Pirates the Cross Stitching Juggernaut.
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Ahoy me lovely stitching crew!
Today us officers would like to invite ye to join a very speedy contest: sloop racing! ship stitching! (I did try to look up what kind of boat we'll be stitchin', yarr, but to no avail.) We be lookin' for signatures for those of ye who want to race yer fastest needles. Place yer name right here in this journal if ye'd like to be a participant. And, please, tell all yer stitchy friends!
Ye must be a member of stitchingpirates to join!
Start Date is October 1st, End Date is when the first three racers have finished!
Ye pir

Going on day #46 of this contest.  This past week I was able to put the time into it that I wanted; averaging about 2-3 hours a day!  I was so happy when I got the last chunk of boat done - made me feel extremely accomplished.  Now I've started into the water where the beautiful blue colors finally come into play.  Though I had hoped to be done by now and working on other projects, it's been a joy to work on this and watch the picture come to life with each new block of color.  I'll be sorry when it ends but happy to create new pictures.  This is the first large project (well, maybe I should say "med-large") I've done in a while and there is something to be said for helping the confidence get back on track.   I've also loved watching how others have been progressing on their ships - in some ways seeing how I measure up in the speed section (I'm not super fast, but I'm holding my own.  )  but also to see where others start their stitching, what colors they tend to lean to first and, just in general, the nice support and faith everyone seems to have in each other.  This has been a good contest for me to be involved in.  I never feel comfortable with the creative contests, but I would certainly go for another "speed" contest if it comes up again.