The Crafty Writer

Posts Tagged ‘Heaven and Earth’

Rotations

Since starting on the detailed and time consuming Heaven and Earth Design picture I decided that I would allow myself to have two sewings in progress at a time to keep the enthusiasm going.  I got off to such a good start with Fairy Tales that I found I was spending most of my time on it, that isn’t a bad thing but I was worried that I would get fed up with it so I decided that I would try to work in rotations.  This is my first attempt at it really, I used to only have one picture on the go at a time and then it got to one large picture with a small one on standby for when I didn’t have a lot of time to settle down and stitch; now I have stepped it up to two large projects.

Each Monday I change what project I’m working on, this week has been spent on a sunflower design by Nel Whatmore which was printed in Cross Stitch Crazy magazine.  As soon as I saw this design I knew that I would have to stitch it, I really love the colours and the way it looks painted.  So far I’ve done a few petals of the sunflower and yesterday completed the centre of it, I can spend a little more time on it today and then tomorrow I’m back with Fairy Tales.

It feels a bit strange at first to swap between the projects week on week, what I’m hoping will happen is that as I near the end of each week I’ll be looking forward to working with different colours and different size stitches the following week.  Sunflowers is being stitched on 14 count aida whilst Fairy Tales is being done on 25 count evenweave, I think it’s been a little while since I’ve done any stitching on anything larger that 16 count so the stitches feel huge.  Once I’ve done a couple of months with this rotation I’ll think about how it’s getting on; if it’s working well I’ll leave it as is but if a week doesn’t feel long enough I’ll consider doing a two week rotation.

New project

I started this one back in early December after my last finish.  The design is called Fairy Tales and is a freebie from Heaven and Earth Designs, just a pdf download from their website

I have attempted one in the past but I chose to stitch with one strand over one on 25ct linen fabric and it really wasn’t working; but I’m always looking at the website and getting tempted to try again so I thought I would do this quick stitch design.  This time I decided to go with evenweave and two strands of thread, after a little while I was struggling to get the needle through so I decided to change to tent stitch (half cross).  There was no way I was going to unpick the full stitches that I had already done; they’re only in the corner so it doesn’t notice too much.  I’ve also done some token gridding on this piece, it isn’t something I usually do, I’ve marked out the outline of the pages of the pattern using some nylon thread which can be pulled out easily once the stitching is done.  It’s a useful way of knowing where you are and allows you to start anywhere you want my first page is the top left corner.  I’m really enjoying this at the moment so The Enchanter has once again taken a back seat all the stitching is done on that one so I just have to do the backstitch and the beading I think I shall see if I can get it done before new year.