Progress on Noel

Coming along pretty well now that I've gotten the hang of working this needle. I have found its small size makes my hands tired pretty fast, somewhere it was suggested to put a pencil grip around the barrel so I may give that a try if it continues. 

The background you see done in Ecru is almost as far as one skein of floss has gotten me, I have one more piece to use that will get me into the E so I have to check my stash for ecru floss or I'll be off to the store for more and that never ends well for the growing stash pile. I do wish the instructions had been a bit more specific about that fact, this obviously uses much more floss than cross stitch but I never expected it to be this much more. The 4 small christmas ornaments I picked up in Chicago use pearl cotton. I will have to take a second look at those as well.