Fairy Tales 7th March

Last week I was back on Fairy Tales and I decided to give parking a try after having read up on the subject and reached a point where I understood it.  There’s all sorts of ways of parking your sewing so it’s mostly a matter of finding what works for you.

Parking is leaving your thread still attached to your sewing and working with another colour.  The thread not being used is parked in the position where it will next be used.  So you’ll need to be sure of your counting (gridding helps a lot here) because in areas with lots of very similar looking colours it’s easy to get lost.  On the other hand in areas of large patches of confetti stitches where your colours are here and there it should save you fastening off the colour constantly.

I began parking by stitching each 10×10 block of stitches in a row across the page and parking the thread in the block underneath.  It felt a little cramped with all of those threads so I began working in columns down the page but still keeping each one 10 stitches across.  It was really quick to stitch the blocks which were mostly background and only had two or three colours.  Then I got onto the confetti heavy columns (you’ll see it as the lacing on her top) each 10×10 block felt like it had fifteen or so colour changes but I think it would have taken me even longer had I been constantly finishing off the thread and adding a new one.

Close up of parked threads

To keep the threads clean while they’re not being used I’m putting them into little grip seal bags which should also prevent them tangling.  I haven’t had any problems with tangles and knots in fact I’ve had less knots during the course of the week than I normally do.  Perhaps that’s another advantage.

I think I shall give the experiment a little longer it speeds up my sewing because the decision of what colour to stitch is made for me and I can usually spend ages planning in advance what colours I want to stitch next.  I don’t think I shall use parking on the Train of Dreams though because I’m using q-snaps for that so the parked threads might get in my way too much.

I got started on Train of Dreams this week.  Another from Heaven and Earth Designs based on some artwork by Randal Spangler.  I loved it as soon as I saw it and from then on it was just a matter of time until I started it.  With the best of intentions I was going to wait until I had finished one of the others in my rotation but in the end I just changed the rotation to a three week one.

Train of Dreams 22 Feb

I started on Monday having done most of the preparation the week before and I began with two strands of thread and half cross stitch but after two hundred or so black stitches I decided that I wasn’t happy with the coverage and unpicked them all.  So I restarted using just one strand but doing full crosses.  This means that it should take a little longer to stitch but I’m happier with the results which is most important.

With Fairy Tales I’ve been working across each page in ten row blocks but with this one it feels better to work on each element of the picture, there’s a good mixture of blocks of colour and patches of confetti stitching.  It all works well together though I’ve almost got two books stitched but the part that has taken the most time are the little leaves that overhang the books.  I’ve been so happy stitching this that I really don’t want the rotation week to end but I must stick to my plans and tonight I move back onto Sun Kissed.

Sun Kissed 7th Feb

After two weeks of feeling that I’ve been making quick progress on my sewings it all seems to have slowed down this week.  But I’ve finished the main sunflower and stitched most of one of the leaves a nice colour change to greens from all those reds and oranges.  I have a feeling that it’s because I haven’t put in all of the background red yet and so it looks like there are lots of big gaps.  There is another daisy to go into the bottom left corner of the picture so I’m getting to the point where I can easily count my way over to it and get the daisy stitched before filling in the background.  If I can get all of the little splashes of colour in then I can just go through and fill in the background and not have to refer to the pattern.  Not having to keep counting and checking the pattern really speeds up stitching.  You can’t see the other daisies at the moment as I’ve scrolled the fabric on the frame to work on the bottom of the picture.

Sunkissed now gets put away for a week so I can carry on with Fairy Tales.  I start on page four of the pattern tonight and this time I have more gridding lines to help with counting and finding my place so I’m looking forward to seeing how much that helps.  I’ve also ordered the fabric for Train of Dreams, someone suggested stitching these large Heaven and Earth Design projects on a cream or ivory fabric as any little spots of background colour do not show through so much so I’m giving ivory a try.  At the same time I ordered the fabric for a couple of other projects so my next task is going to be sorting out storage and labelling my fabric so I know what picture I’ve bought it for.

It’s been a tough week this week not only laid low by a cold but also very impatient to get started on Train of Dreams.  But I will not give in I must finish one of the current sewings before starting a new one.  That doesn’t mean that I can’t get everything together though and so I’ve made a list of fabric and extra threads that I need so that when I do finish one I’m ready to go on the next.

Fairy Tales 31st Jan

This week it was the turn of Fairy Tales on the rotation and I am now a quarter of the way through having completed page 3 of 12.  Page 3 was a small page and quicker to get done but this was mostly background and there’s only so many rows of the same colour I can do before getting bored.  So I broke it up with browsing on the internet, doing some writing and looking forward to next week when I pick up Sun Kissed again.  I have been thinking about adding some more gridding lines to this one to make it easier to count across to all the little individual stitches that are dotted about.  I think there should be time to get some in before the end of the evening.

Very often with sewing I have found that it’s difficult to tell how fast a picture is progressing.  Sometimes I can spend most of the day working on something and feel like I haven’t made any progress at all.  Other times I feel like I only have a moment here and there and as if by magic a large chunk of the picture appears under my fingers.

Sun Kissed 24th Jan

The last time I worked on the sunflowers picture, which I have checked and it’s called Sun Kissed, I had managed to complete the centre of the sunflower.  I picked it up again on Monday as part of the rotation and in the week I’ve managed to get lots done and that’s with time taken in the week to get some writing organised.

I really love the daisies in this picture, they really stand out against the dark background.  Sometimes when stitching light colours in bright areas the thread picks up fibres from the darker colours so I had to plan ahead and get the daisies stitched first before putting the reds, browns and oranges in around them.  There are more groups of daisies in the bottom portion of the picture so I’ll be doing the same then, I have to check my counting carefully but I’d like to keep the white and creams as fibre free as possible.

Back to Fairy Tales next week and I’m looking forward to getting back to it.

The trouble with plans is that they can be difficult to stick to.  This week’s rotation was Fairy Tales and I’ve completed page one and I’m about halfway through page two.

Fairy Tales 17th Jan

The trouble is that it’s now the end of the week and tomorrow it’s time to go back to the sunflowers but I really want to carry on with Fairy Tales.  But I’m going to swap, I want to do the sunflowers just as much and it will be good to get back to larger stitches.

I tried to park the threads, that is to leave the thread where it will next be used but I got a bit confused with the similar colours and it didn’t really work for me.  Instead I worked on doing the confetti stitches first and not worrying about trailing the thread along the back, when I went back and stitched the main colours all the trailing threads were secured safely and I didn’t have such a messy back where I had been fastening on and off the confetti stitches.