I've made a

HOT MESS of things. Look at this wad (no other word) of silk ribbon nonsense. That (on left) is the back of this front (on right). I've been keeping this mess to myself and then just decided I had concealed it from you long enough. Time to come clean and share my misery. How thoughtful of me.

This is the final part of my cybermystery and what you see is the latest of a minimum of 5 attempts at filling in the last space on the project. The thread (River Silks Silk Ribbon) is beautiful, plentiful and all the other positive "ful"s you can think of. It's not sold in Colorado mind you, but it's readily available in other parts of the country. The problem is me. I've used up all but a scant yard of all 3 cards included in the kit; more than enough for most. The stitch, is very simple as in not complex. Go up at A, come down at B and pull until it starts to curl. Piece of cake. Not for me.

The photo on the right depicts my version of the Japanese Ribbon Stitch.  It starts out really nice and uniform, then I accidentally pull the ribbon too far through and that's it. Forget about making an attempt at correcting it, it just makes it worse. So I lived with the non-uniformity, accepting that after so many tries I'll just have to settle. Kept stitching and when I turned it over to bury my thread tail, I found what you see in the photo on the left. A big tangled mass refusing to come loose in any other way except by taking a pair of scissors to it. Hot mess.

So now I'm stuck until my thread arrives. Unable to work on this large piece over the past several weeks, and now that I'm back to normal again and able to proceed, it hasn't turn out so well. Sometimes the best laid plans, or stitches for that matter, just don't cooperate....and I had such high hopes for a finish.  Looking back, I should have taken a piece of canvas and ribbon from my stash and practice, practice, practice. Which is what I will do until my RS ribbon arrives. Thanks to a good friend advising me to hold the back of the stitch in place while stitching, I should have better luck. Meanwhile, I'm not going to ruin my weekend over it, I'm going to the fridge.....