Friday Finish: My Way

Yes, it’s finally done!

Design: My Way

Designer: Carolyn Mitchell

Technique: counted canvas

Ground fabric: 18ct mono canvas

Threads: LOTS!

Stitches used: LOTS!

Stitching timeframe: Started borders October 16, 2008; class November 8-9, 2008; finished September 14, 2010

For more detail around the threads and stitches used in this project, see my previous posts about it. And no, I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. It won't really "go" with anything in my house, but I had fun stitching it and though the decisions frustrated me from time to time, I think I learned a lot from this challenging piece!

I finished just in time. My next class with Carolyn Mitchell (her gorgeous Mystique) starts next Thursday!

Almost a Friday Finish: My Way

I’d like to apologize. I know my posts have been much too infrequent, and, worse, rather… um… boring and mechanical, if that’s the right way to say it. I hope you know what I mean.

There’s a simple reason behind this. My stitching has slowed down to a point where I’ve felt like I have to show some significant progress on a project before I can post about it. As a result, I’ve gone overboard. I get to the point where something is done, or nearly done, before I post about it.

The result, if I post too often, is that there’s nothing to show, and if I post too infrequently, you miss the process of my stitching. I’ve got to try to find a happy medium.

Anyway, I was going to post one block of My Way every few days just to put something up here, and I realized I was sorta dreading writing those posts. They’re as boring for me to write as they are for you to read!

The truth? All of the blocks are done. I’ve just got to make a few decisions on the border. What do you think?

You can see the slight beginning of some of the border decisions. The thin outside border is meant to be in a thread like pearl cotton #5. Unfortunately, all of the values of my border (gray-green) color family don’t come in DMC pearl 5. Specifically, the medium dark value of this family is only available in floss.

For a while now I’ve been meaning to try Linda Reinmiller’s method of making pearl cotton out of floss, so I gave it a shot. I guess I have to play with this a bit more, though, because I really didn’t like the look of the thread that resulted. It’s likely just operator error and lack of practice.

I did try stitching with my homemade pearl, but it didn’t stay in the project long enough for me to take a picture. I’ve decided to just lay three strands of floss for the thin outside border. Despite the need to pick up the laying tool, this will undoubtedly take less time than trying to perfect my pearl-making skills. And my stitching time is limited enough right now.

I’ve also put crescents around one of the corner blocks with two strands of the same color floss. So far, I really like this combination. Now I’ve just got to figure out what goes in the middle of each of those corner blocks!

I’d be interested to hear if you’ve tried making pearl cotton from floss and how your experience went. Some people swear by it, but I’ll reserve judgment until I try it again.

My Way progress: Block B completed

Yes, My Way is coming along. Here’s my completed block B. Unlike block A, I didn’t make very many changes to this one.

This block was a lot of fun. It used, among other stitches, the sprat’s head stitch, and two stitches designed by Jean Hilton: crescents and double fans. (And since I can’t find any instructions for a double fan online, that will undoubtedly be a future blog post!)

I used a variety of threads in the block. If you look closely, you may be able to spot:

• Kreinik 1/16” ribbon
• Caron Impressions and Watercolours
• DMC floss, #8 and #5 pearl cotton
• Rainbow Gallery’s Nordic Gold and Neon Rays
• Gumnuts Blossoms
• Trebizond from Access Commodities

Despite the variety of textures and stitches, this block isn’t too busy. I like how it turned out.

Rediscovering my stitching (and blogging?) mojo

Do you ever hit a point where just about anything can distract you from stitching? I’ve been there for most of the past month.

Don’t get me wrong – I love stitching. It’s just that none of my projects has really been calling to me lately, and other silly things have distracted me in my leisure time. Yes, silly – like playing games or finding cool apps on my new iPod Touch, or surfing the web (sometimes on non-stitching sites, no less!).

It’s really pathetic that my stitching mojo just about completely stalled, considering that I’m almost done with the hardanger piece. Oh, well. It will be quick to finish when I get back to it.

I did start the sampler project that’s part of the Thistle Threads Gold Master Class, then found that since I joined the class on the last day of signups, several of my threads are backordered. On the first motif I stitched, I discovered that I’m missing two or three (out of six) colors. Not very inspiring.

Mojo returns!

All of a sudden, though, I’ve started stitching again! What changed?

It’s simple. I started my Friday Finish posts in part to inspire others, and ended up inspiring myself! My last posted finish, Silk Pageantry, reminded me how much I really enjoy canvaswork and hadn’t been doing much lately.

That’s how My Way found its way back onto my lap stand.

Finalizing decisions so I can just stitch

It’s been a while since I posted about this piece, so let me refresh your memory. I started this project in November 2008 in a class with Carolyn Mitchell.

My Way is a project similar to my more recent class, Potpourri with Margaret Bendig, in that each student chooses her own colors and threads and has a great deal of liberty about exactly how they’re placed.

Here’s what My Way looked like when I last posted about it in November. I’ve stitched on it a bit since then, so it was a bit further along when I picked it up last week.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I want to just stitch. I don’t want to have to make decisions on every project I pick up. I think this was one of the reasons my stitching stalled. I was making decisions on Potpourri, and then on the hardanger piece.

When it came to the six blocks in My Way, I’d made all of the decisions on five. I only had to finalize the center area on Block A, and then I could just stitch.

Block A is the lower middle square in the photo above. I kept pondering this block for a while, because it seemed out of place. The rest of the block centers aren’t square. They extend a bit into the “arms” of their crosses. Can you see what I mean?

I wondered what would happen if I extended the waffle stitch in the middle of this block until it hit the corner areas of the block. So pulled the center out and tried it. Aha! That’s better.

Then I wanted something different than originally designed for the “arms” of this square. So I tried a few things:

Section A is just some large eyelets in two colors. It didn’t get finished because I realized it looked too similar to the main borders of the project.

Sections B and C are actually the same stitch (alternating oblong and square crosses), in the same colors, but with the color gradations opposite each other. I took a vote with some stitching friends. Two liked B, and two liked C. Not much help there. I looked at it from across the room and decided I liked the dark in the middle.

Hooray! Now I can stitch away, with no decisions in sight until I finish all of the blocks and need to finalize a couple of things on the border.

Aaaaaahhhhh!

Oh. In case you’re curious, yes, I have finished this block. What do you think?

Sorry for the really long post. I guess I’ve been storing up blogging mojo, too. Now that I’m stitching again, there’s a chance that I’ll be posting more!

WIP: My Way (by Carolyn Mitchell)

Today's featured WIP is no stranger to my blog. It is Carolyn Mitchell's My Way.

Technique/Materials: Counted canvaswork on 18ct mono canvas, using many different threads in three color families (cranberry, teal, and gray-blue).

Background: Long-time readers may recall that I started this project when my LNS brought Carolyn Mitchell in to teach last November (2008). The class was specifically structured such that each stitcher could truly call the finished piece MY Way. Each of us chose our own colors. Specific threads were called out in each section, but in some cases, those threads were not available in the color family specified, so the student's creativity was needed, either to change the order of colors or to substitute other threads. Additionally, we could choose from seven blocks, and could position them as desired.  One stitcher even chose to make this a nine-patch design, rather than just six, and will be reusing two squares with different colors and threads.

I just discovered that Carolyn has pictures of finished My Way projects from 19 different stitchers (including herself) on her website.  Scroll down on this page to the listing for My Way.  (While on that page, you can also see Mystique, the class I'll be taking next September.)

Why it's not done: This piece was put by the wayside as my pregnancy advanced last winter, since I couldn't manage such large stretcher bars on my lap stand as my lap disappeared!  I've since picked it up and have made some progress, completing the centers of each of the six squares, but it was again set aside last month when my fellow ANG members voted on another piece to be my "challenge UFO".

What's left to do:  I have a few more decisions to make on two of the squares (the bottom center and right squares in the picture), and then I can replicate the corners and sides throughout.  After that, it's just a matter of adding a little bit of emphasis on each of the border intersections.

UFO fun

On Wednesday evening, I attended my local ANG meeting. As we did in early 2008, we again had some fun with members' UFOs. Each member who chose to participate in the 2009/2010 UFO challenge brought in three UnFinished Objects, pieces started at least one year ago. The rest of the membership voted on which piece the member would be challenged to finish by December 2010.

I decided to bring My Way, Cinders, and Wheels of Color (the only remaining UFO of the three I brought in last year).  I really wanted them to choose My Way, and it received several votes, but Wheels was the winner.

It was an enjoyable evening.  The best part, as it was last year, was hearing the excuses regarding why certain pieces were set aside.

Which of my three would you choose if you were in my chapter?  Which of your pieces would you put up for voting?

Corner experiments

Since I don't have a one-for-one match for all of the threads originally used on My Way, I need to play with my threads and colors for each area. (Tough job, but somebody's got to do it.) Before I start stitching either the corner or center of a block, I go through my threads and select replacements for the called-for threads in that area. Rather than just assuming I'll always use thread X in place of original thread Y, I like to see how all the pulled threads work together.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Case in point - the original threads I pulled for the corners on my block G:

Wow. That outer teal band, while pretty by itself (especially stitched in two strands of Impressions), sticks out like a sore thumb next to the rest of the corner. It's a bit too bright and provides too much contrast. The problem is that the instructions say to pull a dark color of this family, and I really don't have a dark teal.

I wondered what would happen if I changed that band to a dark gray-blue from my neutrals family. Here's the result:

It's a bit tough to see in the photo with the reflection off of the pearl cotton, but this combination seems to be better, though I'm still not completely sold on it.  What do you think?  Should I change something else?

Walking a tightrope

When playing with design, you have to keep the balance of the original (and perhaps improve upon it).  In the case of My Way, this means positioning similarly shaped motifs opposite each other.  It's difficult to describe, but pictures can help tell the story.

In the original design, the layout of the blocks is as follows:

Notice how some similar motifs are positioned relative to each other:

• Blocks B and E both have the rounded square inner area, with corner areas that emphasize a diagonal direction away from the center of the block.  These are in the two middle positions of the design.
• Located in two opposing corners of the design, blocks A and F have a distinct cross in the center with corners that remind me of a log cabin quilt.
• Blocks C and D are in the other two corners, and have a diamond-shaped center with corners that have an all-over, non-directional pattern.

When I started stitching my version, I started block A in the middle position, rather than in a corner, just to be different.   As a result, block B ended up in a corner, and I moved block E to the opposite corner so these two blocks again balanced each other.  Here's my design-in-progress.

Along the way, I decided to not stitch block D since (in my opinion) it draws the eye a bit too much.  I'm replacing it with block G.   Block G has a distinct cross in the center, so I'm using this block opposite A.  However, the original corners for G have an "X" or star shape emphasized.  To balance the log cabin look of the A corners, I'm stealing the corners from block F to use on my block G.

In one of the remaining two corners of the design, block C has been started.  Block F is planned for the opposite corner.  In stitching F, I'll need to select colors carefully to emphasize a diamond shape rather than a cross as in Carolyn's original.  Oh, and I need to use the corners from block D here to balance those of block C.

Confused yet?  Don't worry.  It is confusing, especially when it's not sitting right in front of you.  The point is that if you're going to make significant changes to the layout of a geometric design, sometimes you need to walk a tightrope (i.e. keep balancing!) while juggling (areas of the design, that is).

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Erin update:  Hooray!  The cast is off!  Erin did NOT enjoy the process of cutting it off.  Can you say terrified?  After a rough evening yesterday, she did fairly well today.  She does need to wear a brace most of the time, but it can be removed for some play times.  She really enjoyed being able to wiggle, and managed to roll from stomach to back (twice!), even though her legs are still pretty stiff and stick out to each side.

The unfortunate news is that Erin's left hip is still quite unstable.  She will need to undergo further surgery after her first birthday and then have another cast for six weeks.  :-(

For now, I'm enjoying having my squishy baby back.  :-)

Back to My Way

To scratch my itch for canvaswork, I've again picked up My Way, which was started almost a year ago.  To recap, the class with Carolyn Mitchell was in November 2008, but the borders were done as prework to the class.  Each stitcher picked her own colors to fill in this six-block pattern.  I chose mulberry and turquoise, with a "neutral" family of bluish-gray.  I was unsuccessful in finding all of the colors I needed in the threads called out in the instructions, so I'm winging it in some cases.

This week, I've been working on Block G.  How do we have block G if there are only six blocks?  Well, that was part of making the design "my way" for each stitcher.  We have seven blocks to choose from.

I'm not at all sold on keeping the center hearts as the lightest turquoise, mostly because it doesn't really pop.  This shade is too close to the blue-gray of the border.  I may replace this with a medium shade if it doesn't work with the rest of the design, but for now I'll leave it.

Here's the whole thing so far.  I'm deliberately leaving each block only partially done so I can make changes if the whole design doesn't balance.

Up next:  the corner of this block.  Stay tuned!

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Erin update:  CAST-OFF COUNTDOWN:  1 day, 3 hours.
Of course, she finally slept well last night.  Rather than waking every 3-4 hours like she has ever since being casted, she slept straight through from 11PM to 6:30AM.  Figures.  And now we're going to disrupt that by taking the cast off!

More on colors in My Way

I really appreciate the comments from the last post. Getting feedback like that really helps me play out all of the options.

I thought that showing a full picture of My Way might help with my point about color balance. When looking at the entire piece, the details of any one area do not really stand out. (Susan, do you agree?) If anything does look out of place after I get the rest of the blocks partially done, I can always reevaluate.
As for using a yellow/cream in the area under discussion in the last post (the little 1/4 circle in the bottom left), the colors don't really show up well in the pictures. Cyn, the area you pointed out in the Watercolours thread isn't really yellow. It's green. Lime green. I intended to keep this color ONLY in the Watercolours, but to be sure to use it in each square as a bit of a "poison" or "kicker" color.

With the other suggestion of using a lighter burgundy with a bit of shine, well, the only thing that fits that description is the thread used in the center of this same block for the crescent stitches. I don't really want to overwhelm that block with too much of one thread.

I realized that I had never posted the latest progress on block C. Here it is with the center, one side, and one corner done.

Color play on My Way

As I mentioned in the last post, I'm now going back to finish at least 1/4 of each block I have started on My Way. In working on Block B, I was very pleased with how most of it came out, but when I reached the little quarter-circle in the corner, I didn't really have a good thread. The directions call for a metallic ribbon in the lightest value in the neutrals family (my blue-grey). Well, I don't have such a thread. I started by trying Petite Frosty Rays by Rainbow Gallery in a very pale gray, but it looked very stark against the rest of the piece. It actually looks a lot better here in the picture, but trust me, when viewing the entire project, it just doesn't work.

This block is in one corner of the project. In the other corner, I have the beginning of Block E, which I featured in my last post. I thought the two roughly circular areas would balance each other out. Well, since block E uses a medium turquoise in its quarter-circle area, I thought that perhaps a medium burgundy would work here in Block B. Right now, all I can say is that the color works better than the light gray. I might have to adjust the beginnings and ends of stitches so it covers the canvas better, or perhaps I'll basketweave the area and do the woven stitch over the top so the canvas "dandruff" isn't so obvious. What do you think?

I'm really enjoying this piece, but unfortunately I need to put it away for a bit. I really would like to turn in the Summer Dream GCC for evaluation, and since it's due in early January, I need to spend some time on it! That's what I'll be working on this evening.

Slow progress on My Way

I guess I'm starting to enter another tired period of my pregnancy. That was most of my problem last Sunday when I didn't make it to the last day of the My Way class. Thank you to all of you who expressed your concern.

All I've managed to stitch since then is about a quarter of Block E. I wanted to get the center, one corner, and one side in so I could see all of the colors in before I moved back to do the same on the blocks I've already started.

What made this block take as long as it did was all of the small stitches used in the corner. It doesn't matter how small the area is, if the stitches are small, too, they take longer! I also debated quite a bit about exactly what threads to use.

I hope to actually stitch for a bit tonight, unlike last night when I fell asleep on the couch at 9PM!

My Way class: Day 2

The second day of the My Way class continued in the same vein as the first. We worked through color choices of the next two blocks. Luckily, we're in a conference room in the same plaza/mall as the LNS. When a stitcher found she just didn't have a thread that would work in a given place, she could scoot over to the shop to try to find something. Since the LNS owner was in the class with us, she just asked that everyone keep track of what they had pulled from the shop and pay for it later.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, my first order of the day was to fix my waffle stitch in Block A. Here's what I came up with, and it works much better.Block B started with a bit of a debate: do I use the burgundy family for the crescents and turquoise behind it, or vice versa? Part of what plays into this decision is the yet-unstitched Bargello that goes in the corners. The Bargello uses the same color family as the background, and since I really don't have a wonderful continuous range of values in the burgundy, I decided to keep the turquoise as the background (not stitched) and the trellis around it.
In Block C, I was finally able to use a bit more of the blue-gray-green border colors (although some of these will go into each of the other squares eventually). I'm very pleased with the one finished leg of the cross.
Unfortunately, I'm staying home from class today since I'm not feeling well. I do plan on continuing to stitch in between naps. I'm going to move on to Block D and E, because I really want a bit of reassurance that this whole thing is going to be balanced before I spend too much time finishing the blocks that I've already started.

My Way class: Day 1

OK, so it wasn't a full day. We started My Way last evening with just over 2 hours of class time. So far, I'm really enjoying Carolyn Mitchell's teaching style. She's not really teaching how to do each stitch, but rather helping us all with our color and thread choices, working through one block at a time. It's really amazing to see all of the color palettes everyone's chosen.

Last night we talked through and started stitching "Block A". Here is my My Way before class. The little blocks in the corners of the squares were the latest assigned prework. We were asked to have at least one done in each square.
It turned out that Block A was my least favorite block on the original design, because the color balance didn't seem right with the rest of the piece. Block A is the upper left block in the picture I posted here (though I moved mine to one of the two center blocks). Most of the other blocks used neutrals for the majority of the main cross, but this one was in a much brighter color family. I wanted to change it around so it fit in better with the rest of the design. As a result, I couldn't stick with the formulas in the instructions for "color family A goes here, color family B goes here", and spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I was going to do. I am going to work the cross portion in the "neutrals" family (the blue-gray of the border), and I'm going to have the values change from dark to light as I work in towards the center.

Here's the little bit I was able to finish last night. I actually have to take out a bit of the center waffle stitch because the second-to-last color (just inside the burgundy) seems to fall flat. I think I'm going to punch it up with a bit of metallic.
Now, I've got to go. I'd like to fix that waffle stitch before class starts at 9AM!

Satin stitches & stash enhancement

I haven't been posting over the last several days because there didn't seem to be much entertainment or educational value in a bunch of posts titled "Satin stitches", "More satin stitches", "Yet another day of satin stitches", and so on. At last though, I'm done with the satin stitches on the border of My Way.

According to the instructions, these were to be done in #5 pearl cotton, which would have worked up fairly quickly. I didn't really like the coarser look of the pearl cotton, though, so I used 5 strands of floss in a shade darker than the eyelets and basketweave. Of course, using floss meant laying each stitch. I love the play of light off of carefully laid threads, especially when viewed at an angle.

While it takes a bit longer, I really don't mind laying threads. I get into a rhythm, and it's pretty relaxing. There's no race, anyway - except to get the borders done before the class! Now, I've just got a bit of herringbone stitch to do outside of the satin stitches. I am waiting to see how the colors are going to play in the rest of the piece before deciding what to threads to use for the decorative stitching on top of the basketweave squares.

In answer to Cyn's question: I've only been able to find one picture of Carolyn Mitchell's My Way online. It was in a pdf of one chapter's newsletter, but I was able to save the image and repost it here. This version is a bit more washed out than other stitched pieces I've seen, but part of the challenge of this piece is picking your own color schemes.

Last week I mentioned something about starting on Luan Callery's Summer Dream. This didn't get too far, yet. I've managed to get the design on the fabric and mount and lace the fabric to the stretcher bars, but have yet to start stitching.

On to the second part of this post's title - did I say something about stash enhancement? Ah, yes. I managed to get into a little bit of trouble during Gay Ann's sale week. I have absolutely no idea when I'll get around to stitching these pieces, but I picked up the Almost Whitework Sampler, English Cottage Garden, and the Drawn Thread Sampler . I managed to save some pictures of these pieces before they disappeared from Gay Ann's website. I'm now waiting for the instructions to show up in the mail!




Speaking of Gay Ann Rogers, Colleen asked a question about the colors I used in Strawberry Girl. Colleen, I used the greens called for in the pattern, namely the DMC 500 series. I did change the red of the strawberries to a darker red (from a bright pink), and substituted threads from my stash for the Anchor browns in the hair and yellow in the flowers. I hope this helps you make your decisions for stitching yours!

Basketweave and eyelets

And more basketweave and eyelets. That's what I've been doing with my stitching time this past week.This is the beginning of My Way, the class I'm taking with Carolyn Mitchell in two weeks. I'm glad this was only in one strand of pearl cotton 8. (Since she couldn't get the right color in pearl 8, MIL is doing hers in three strands of floss and laying each stitch. Talk about making a long job take even longer!)

From here, I've got to do some satin stitches around the eyelets to fill out the border, then herringbone to outline the border. Then I'll be ready for the class!

For a little variety, those of us in my local EGA chapter who are taking the Summer Dream stumpwork GCC are getting together tonight to kick off our projects. I'm looking forward to the change of pace!