The Crafty Writer

Posts Tagged ‘Heaven and Earth Designs’

Giving in

Last week I finished sunkissed and the sensible thing to do would have been to concentrate on Train of Dreams and the quick stitch of Fairy Tales.  Instead I gave in and started Faces of Faery 70, another Heaven and Earth Design by Jasmine Becket-Griffith.  I’ve spent a week on her so far and got half of the first page done, there are only two full A4 pages of chart on this one; the remaining four pages are just part pages.  I just got her eye finished last night, there’s just one more stitch to put in which is a sparkly thread and I’m leaning more to putting that in once I’ve got the page finished as there are more stitches of it on her nose.

I would usually use Krenik thread but several people have suggested the use of Tiny Treasures Petite Braid which I am going to try instead.  Metallics are generally difficult in that they like to split and unravel so I use short lengths and Thread Heaven.  Filling metallics at the end also means that you’re filling in the unstitched areas, unpicking stitches is frustrating at the best of times but unpicking metallic threads is a nightmare.

Next week I shall get back to Train of Dreams, I’ve left it longer than intended because of my finish and new start and I’m looking forward to spending more time on it.  Poor Fairy Tales hasn’t been picked up in weeks again as well so I’ll have to think about when I’m going to spend some time on her as well.

New frames and framing pictures

Some good news this week I finally framed Woodland Enchantress.  I found a place online which had just the type of frame I wanted which was a relief after the local framer I used closed down and relocated out of town.  I’ve framed my own work before so that isn’t so daunting for me and with the hard work of the frame made and the mount cut it’s just a matter of putting it all together. Grumpy Cat got shut out of the room as the picture was put inside the frame and then taken out again to remove the bit of fur that had still managed to find it’s way in.  Eventually the job was done and the finished picture finally hanging on my wall.

This week was also a week spent on Train of Dreams.  I’m having so much fun stitching this design but as the fabric is nearly 32 inches wide I had been stitching using q-snaps rather than the scroll frames I usually use.  But as a special treat and early birthday present I got a millenium frame from needleneeds, apart from being one of the few places where I could get a frame over 30 inches they also have stretcher side bars which are an excellent way to get the fabric tension just right.  They are also lovely and solid but you do need to use a stand of some sort because it would be too heavy to use any other way (the bars are 36 inches).  It took a little bit of getting used to but it does mean that I can now get back to stitching two-handed.  I could also think about parking on this one as well as Fairy Tales but I’m not so sure because I enjoy working on each individual element at a time and I don’t think the parking would really let me do that.

At first I didn’t think I was making much progress with the Train this week but I’ve done a lot more than I thought I had.  It’s so difficult to put it away at the end of it’s rotation but in a way I’m looking forward to spending some time back with the sunflowers next week.

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.