The Crafty Writer

Archive for February, 2010

Sun Kissed Update

The main thing I notice when I switch back to the sunflowers is how big the stitches are.  This is done on regular 14 count aida and after the tiny stitches of 25 count these feel so big.  Most of the week was spent on finishing the leaf and getting a daisy and a big patch of the background filled in.  After all of those reds I was glad to get a few more daisies in over the weekend and begin work on some more background.  I think I’m nearly at the halfway point now but there’s lots of background to be done so I’m saving the remaining daisies and the sunflower at the top to break that up.

I’ve spent a lot of time stitching this weekend so I finished early this evening to give myself a break.  Tomorrow is back to Fairy Tales on the rotation.  I’m finding that the three week rotation feels a bit too long between projects so once I’ve finished Sun Kissed I’m planning not to start anything else until I’ve finished Fairy Tales.  I’m full of good intentions until I see something new I want to start.

All Aboard

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.

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.

Giving in to temptation

For the most part of this week I’ve felt that Fairy Tales was going really slowly I don’t think it’s anything to do with stitching slowly but taking longer of an evening to settle down and get on with my stitching.  There’s also been a lot of confetti stitches – single stitches sprinkled here and there – and I’ve been experimenting with the best way to stitch them and finish the thread on the back of the work.  The back of my work is usually very neat but it’s difficult to keep the back of this one neat, I’m trying not to worry about it too much though as only the front will be seen once it’s framed.

I did have a good bit of time to work on it this weekend though and decided that it would be a good idea to keep a count of the number of stitches that I’ve done.  I can keep track of this with the Heaven and Earth designs because the entire piece is stitched and I stitch in blocks of ten rows.  So this week I have done 3360 stitches and I’m now 35% of the way through.  I’m going to keep a track of this, it will be interesting to see how that varies week by week and it’s nice to know how far through I am.  I’m almost getting down to the level of the top of her dress so that should start to become clearer the next time I pick her up in the rotation.  The rotation is really going well, it’s nice to have a different picture to work on each week so from tomorrow the rotation is changing and I’m going to rotate three projects.  I couldn’t resist the lure of Train of Dreams I’ve got everything ready that I need and part of my stitching time this week has been taken up with gridding the page outlines onto the fabric and preparing the needle holders and thread holders so that I can get started on it tomorrow night.

Quick Quick Slow

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.