Border decisions

The prework for my Margaret Bendig class, Potpourri on Canvas, involves stitching the borders that divide the canvas into 46 blocks and the first row of the outer border.

I previously mentioned that I had picked up Caron's Impressions in Flame (#045) for the dividing borders. This color name is a bit misleading, because the thread ranges from a dark grape to deep mauve to an orange-red. Regardless of the name, it really works well with my chosen palette.

Knowing that a large portion of my threads are in the purple range, I thought that a dark lavender would work well for the outer smyrna cross border. To make the smyrnas have some dimension, I wanted to use a round thread as opposed to several strands of floss.

Well, I tried it, with DMC pearl cotton #8 in 3041. That's the darkest lavender easily accessible to me in this size. Unfortunately, it just got washed out. It wasn't dark enough!

In an attempt to save the idea of a purple border, I decided to try stitching the smyrnas in two colors, with the pearl cotton on bottom and a darker purple metallic on top. I even tried two different metallics as options. Nothing worked. It just looked awkward with the metallic on top of the pearl cotton. What do you think?

I went back to the stash, but didn't find anything that worked. Darn. I needed to go shopping. (Don't you feel sorry for me?) I ended up buying four different colors in pearl 8, all of which worked with my colors. Only one of these was dark enough for the border, but any might be usable for the inner blocks.

So what did I choose? A dark burgundy, DMC 902. You might agree that it's a much better choice.

I should be done with all of the borders very soon. Stay tuned for the completion of the prework!