Queen Stitch strawberries

On Saturday, I sent in my registration for EGA's national seminar. This year is EGA's 50th anniversary, and seminar promises to be spectacular. Since it's being held in Louisville, Kentucky, home of national headquarters, one of the advantages is that we'll get to see the National Exhibit! I've never been to a national seminar before, and am really looking forward to this. Now to see what classes I get!

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To ensure the colors dried completely, I wanted to wait a bit before continuing with Winds of Color. For a change of pace, I picked up Catherine Theron's Examplar IV. I started this at the regional seminar last year, and thought it would be a good idea to make some progress before national comes and more class pieces find their way into my WIP pile.

Continuing around the border, on Saturday and Sunday I stitched the strawberries at the bottom. These are stitched in queen stitch. This stitch was one I struggled with for years, until I took a class with Eileen Bennett. I found that, contrary to my brain's logic, they really do work best if stitched left to right and all tacking stitches are taken right to left (or vise versa - tied down stitches right to left, tacking stitches left to right). They don't turn out the same if you do the two outside (or inside) tied down stitches first and take the tacking stitches always from the inside out. I don't know why. They also have to be stitched fairly tightly. (If anyone wants to see this stitch done step by step, let me know, and I'll try to do a queen stitch tutorial and take pictures along the way.)

Ok, Blogger's being stubborn and won't let me upload the picture of the entire piece. It will have to wait!

Coloring Winds

In my last post, I mentioned that I was stuck on a part of Winds of Color. I'd been working the sections of the design in the order they showed up in the instructions (in case you were wondering why I was jumping around so much). After I finished the areas of underside couching (areas 11, 11a, 12), I read ahead a bit.

The instructions for area 14 say something about "the greyed areas of the canvas". Ummm... my area 14 isn't shaded at all. Ok, how about 14a: "area is painted in a very dark tone". Mine must be a very dark white!

There's an explanation for this. This was originally designed as a teaching piece, and part of the class time was designated for coloring areas of the canvas. When I ordered it, many years after it was originally taught, the canvas came colored already, but apparently a couple of areas were missed. Unfortunately, the instructions didn't provide details for the "permanent marking pens" called out on the materials page. I emailed Elsa Parrish, the designer.

In the meantime, I stitched a bit on areas of the sky. Here are areas 16 (dark blue) and 16a (lavender), both done in open versions of encroaching gobelin. I also started area 18, the background sky, stitched in a darning stitch.














It turned out that Ms. Parrish replied very promptly to tell me the type of marker (Prismacolor) and the colors I needed. Yesterday, I took my canvas to a local art store. The store didn't have the complete line of Prismacolor pens, but I was able to find colors that were fairly close to the originals. When I got home, I very carefully colored in the areas (area 14a was particularly tough, since it was completely surrounded by stitching), and managed to get just a minimal amount of ink on the surrounding threads. (I figure that will help the areas blend better. :-P )
I also put a very light layer of the navy color on top of the existing mottling of area 17. I had tried to start that area, but it's a very open stitch, and the white was just too stark. I'm also thinking of taking out the darning stitches in the sky and trying to darken that area a bit. What do you think?

Sky & Clouds

Since I last posted about Elsa Parrish's Winds of Color, it's progressed nicely.

On the right side, an area with double hungarian stitch with blended threads has been added. This area was an interesting challenge because instead of stitching full stitch repeats with a given color, the emphasis was on directing the colors through the full shape of the area. I started with the lightest color, working it down and to the right, doing parts of the stitch repeats. After I thought I had enough of that color, I blended two strands of the lightest with two strands of the next shade, working around the previous stitches. The toughest part was keeping an eye on the stitch pattern to make sure it would work out after the other colors were added.

Three areas of underside couching have been stitched, also. (Actually, it's called underside couching in the instructions; I didn't pull the top thread to the back as is shown in the link. There are just tiny couching stitches on top of the fabric.) These areas are the gray cloud on the left side, the area under the green trees, and the light blue/lavender areas of the sky. It's really neat how the couching enhances the coloration of the background without overwhelming it.

I've got some questions about two of the areas that are up soon, so I've emailed the designer. I guess I'll be skipping ahead to other areas as I continue to work on this.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everybody! May your day be blessed with all you enjoy (including a bit of stitching!). Here are a few freebies to help:

• Free Patterns Online has several cute cross stitch charts.
• If you like beading, you might want to make an Easter basket from About.com.
• Sandy Riggs has an adorable Easter Bunny with Basket

Of course, you can also visit my links from last year, too.

Enjoy!

Recent stash acquisitions

Ever since I saw Elisabeth's review of the new Alison Cole book All That Glitters, I've been hoping my LNS would get it in. Much to my surprise, the owner did have one copy in last week, and three of us in the Thursday night group signed up to get the three additional copies coming in. They showed up this week. This book has wonderful photos of some really amazing embroidery, in addition to decent illustrations and instructions for those techniques specific to goldwork and stumpwork. While I won't be starting anything like these projects anytime soon, it's fun to read through and be awed by the work!

Yesterday I took the day off from work. MIL and I went to a not-so-LNS about two hours away. A Stitcher's Garden has a different selection than some of our more local shops, tending more toward samplers, including lots of hand-dyed linen. Between thumbing through these and a good sampling of the new stuff from the Nashville market, we both left the store with some fun new purchases!

I purchased:

• A Very Good Year by Prairie Moon. I probably won't stitch this as shown, but I really liked the three medallions!
• Seasons of the Trees by Rosewood Manor. I already have the chart for And a Forest Grew, and couldn't resist this companion.
• AlphaBlu by Courtney Collection, with 36ct Golden Harvest linen from R&R Reproductions. This will go really well with the framed Celtic Banner from MLI hanging in my dining room. I'm thinking that Vikki Clayton's Kodiakery will work well with this fabric, and I just happen to have a spool of it!
• Small pieces (around 7" x 9") of 40 ct Daily Grind and Creme Brulee from R&R. These will work for future exchange pieces.

I'm hoping to post again tomorrow, but if I don't get around to it, I hope everyone (who celebrates it) has a very happy and blessed Easter!

Improved color transition

In my post last Sunday (has it really been that long?), I mentioned that I didn't like the color transitions in the right side of the scarf on Winds of Color. I didn't like the compensation I was using. Here's how it looked:See all of those itty bitty stitches along the line where the color changed? They broke up the repeat of the stitch pattern. It looked awkward, plus it was nearly impossible to continue the stitch sequence on the left side of the transition.

A bit of ripping ensued. I then restitched the transition without breaking up any of the stitch pattern. The result: Even though the color transition is a bit more chopped up when observed closely, when you take a step back, it flows better because the stitches themselves aren't split up between colors. (i.e. I'm not breaking up an over-two stitch into two separate over-one stitches in two different colors.) This looks much better and it's easier to keep the stitch pattern going.

The lady is slowly progressing!