An new WIP and fighting with my inner tightwad

I still haven't gotten back to stitching on "Homespun Hollow."  I showed DH a pattern that I liked but wasn't sure I'd enjoy stitching.  Well, he liked it, especially after I mentioned that I thought it would look good hanging on the wall over our bed.  I mean he REALLY liked it.  

So I did what any sensible stitcher would do when their DH expresses a distinct interest in a particular pattern, I bought it and commenced to stitching on it.  The pattern is "One Nation" by ByGone Stitches.  

I love the look of the pattern, but wasn't too keen on stitching endless rows of letters (the names of the states) and long endless rows of borders.  And stitching 50 Quaker stars didn't sound fun either.  But I figure if I get it going and aim for a couple of stars and states a week, I can get it done.  And it will look really great hanging on the wall over our bed.  And I like stitching with red, white, and blue.

I did have to wrestle with my inner tightwad though before starting to stitch.  

The pattern is VERY large - 400w X 210h!  Stitched on 28 count as called for by the pattern, it will measure 28.5" x 15"!  You need a fat-half of fabric to stitch it.  The pattern called for linen which would have run me around $30-$40 dollars plus shipping, depending on whether I used hand-dyed (called for) or regular linen.  I didn't want to spend that much.  Besides, I already had a perfectly lovely fat-half piece of Tea-dyed Monaco sitting around.  So I used it.

And I didn't want to use the Crescent Colors called for as they are not color-fast.  They are very lovely colors, but as this is a large piece that will take some time, it will need washing.  In addition, you need 24 skeins of Crescent Colors at $2.00 a skein to stitch this.  So I used good ol' DMC instead.  I'll post a picture later.

LoneStar