Flowers of the Field

Hey Stitchers!  Time and energy have eluded me when it comes to stitching and consequently for the first time in years my stitching mojo is on the wane - my reading mojo has replaced it though, so every cloud and all that!

However as some of you who follow me on IG know, I finished Flowers of the Field last week, so I actually have something to blog about.  It was a lovely design to stitch, but I'm glad I chose 32ct and not 40ct after all that over 1 lettering!

Here is a close up of the final part:

 

And the whole design completed:

 

 

A terrible photo, but long and narrow designs are so hard to capture!

 

I know that samplers aren't every stitcher's cup of char, but I love them - original and repros!  I love their deceptive "perceived" simplicity.  Flowers of the Field, though not a difficult stitch by any means, contained a much greater variety of stitches than is found in any Chatelaine Design - designs that look very busy and complicated, but are actually quite simple to stitch.

 

Difficulty, like beauty, is very much in the eye of the beholder though - which reminds me of a recent article by The Oracle of Needlework.  There are some reproduction samplers that I would love to attempt in the future that scare me to death, that other stitchers wouldn't bat an eyelid at.  In a weird way the difficulty makes me want to stitch them all the more so - much safer to be an adrenaline junkie from the comfort of my stitching chair lol!  The designs themselves look simple, but if you are fortunate enough to be able to look closely at an original (or if you are stitching a reproduction), you can see the variety of stitches used and the perfect tension (my personal nemesis!) applied to thread and fabric.  The really mind blowing thing though after you've admired such a piece of stitching, is when you realise that the needlewoman that created the original piece was actually only a young girl!

 

In the future I would love to stitch a "scary" repro sampler as a learning piece for myself, really focusing on the quality of each and every stitch to produce the best piece of needlework that I can.  For the moment though, the closest I can get to that is by stitching vicariously through SANQ, by reading through the last collection of the final issues on CD that will hopefully be dropping through my letter box sometime today.

 

In the meantime, who knows when I'll put another stitch in a piece of fabric.........my next blogpost may be quite some time lol!

 

Happy Stitching!

More of the same........

As predicted, stitching time continues to be significantly less and time for blogging even more so, hence the lack of posts in January.  To be honest, I've been working on the same four projects all month so it would only have been a case of more of the same, so maybe a monthly post is better lol!

The majority of my stitching time for January was weekend stitching or the odd hour or two grabbed before I leave the house at 7.30am - thankfully the pieces I picked to start off the year are nice and easy for early morning stitching!  Considering these pieces of fabric were all blank at the start of the month, I don't think I've done too badly, though I am missing working on more challenging pieces, so I may tweak my "rotation" a bit when these WIPs turn into finishes.

Anyway, without further ado, here is my progress for January!

Firstly QS Lady Bug, such a fast stitch this one and I'm sure I'll have a finish in February!  All the surrounding foliage you see in the picture below was a Sunday afternoon's worth of stitching whilst streaming The X-Files - hurrah for tent stitch!

This is how far an entire skein on Anchor 403 will get you!

Next up is Flowers of the Field by Eileen Bennett, I got up to part 2 (of 3) this month, again a great design to pick up when time is short as you can stitch a band or two and see the progress immediately.

 

 

Over 1 lettering on 32ct and tweeded French knots!

 

Berthe Massiet didn't quite make it to her second turn in the "rotation", but I still managed to chip away at her and complete 1 (of 6) pages:
 

 

 

 

Lastly Cinderella, which I very much expect will take me the longest to finish as I think to make any sort of progress she needs to be a weekend stitch:

 

 

I've just downloaded Mabel's February RIC SAL chart, so although I won't get to it until later in the week, at least I can think about colours and it will make a nice change from cross stitch.

 

I'm thinking that once these four are finished, I will reduce the amount of WIPs I have on the go to a weekday piece and a weekend piece - with the weekend piece providing me with a bit more of a challenge.  I've got my eye on some new hardanger designs and a Ukrainian whitework piece so I may well treat myself to some new patterns to start once these four are completed.

 

Happy Stitching!

A Weekend of WIPs and a Finish!

The advantage of starting the year with no WIPs is that you get to have new starts with abandon - well four new starts, which for me is my "rotation" maximum!

So here they are, with a few hours stitching in on each of them!

My New Year's New Start was Berthe Massiet, by Reflets de Soie, a pretty sizeable French sampler which is why I choose to stitch it 1 over 2 on 40ct using AVAS d'Alger.  It is mostly cross stitch with some pattern darning sections.  Here is where a couple of hours got me:

All  materials from stash

 

Next, surprise surprise is a HAED!  I haven't stitched one of these for over a year after I decided that their BAPs were not for me, though I have completed a few SKs, QS and Minis in my time.  Every so often I feel the pull of a few on my hard drive, but I know it's more the art than the stitching that I'm attracted to.  That being said, there was a nice easy design in my HAED stash (a chart I received in the rewards programme) that I love and would use up a piece of hand dyed fabric in my stash so I thought why not!  So here is HAED QS Ladybug by Ching-Chou Kuik, stitched on 28ct Brittney Opal LE Christmas Poinsettia by Jodyri Designs, 2 over 1 tent stitch with Anchor black as I prefer the coverage to DMC black:

 

 

All materials from stash

Next up I started a design that I've had in my stash since it was released in a magazine back in January 2012!!!  In fact it was probably one of the last times I purchased a UK cross stitch magazine and I only do so for this designer's charts - yes you've guessed it, it's a Joan Elliott design.  I have her Historical Ladies (Medieval Lady already complete) and Fairy Tale Princesses in my stash to stitch and I've been looking forward to stitching at least one of them this year.  So I've chosen Cinderella as I had suitable hand dyed fabric in my stash for her and the majority of the DMC, beads and metallics used, so just a small order to Sew and So was required :).  I've swapped the Kreinik metallics for Petite Treasure Braids as I usually do and she is stitched 2 over 2, except for skin - that will be stitched 1 over 1.  The fabric is 28ct Brittney Opal in Speckled Eggs by Jodyri Designs:

 

Majority of materials from stash, just some extra DMCs required

 

My final start was from the Fall 2003 issue of SANQ Magazine and is entitled Flowers of the Field by Eileen Bennett (#99 on this page) and contains 15 different sampler stitches in 10 shades of Anchor and one metallic (which again I subbed for PTB).  Initially I had thought to stitch this on 40ct, but when I looked at the pattern there seemed a fair bit of over 1 stitching so I opted for 32ct Belfast instead to save my eyes a bit!
 

All materials from stash

 

 Last but not least I had my first finish of the year courtesy of Mabel's Hardanger SAL Round in Circles.  Round One was released on Friday and was stitched up within a couple of hours.  I opted to go for the same colour scheme that I used for Confetti of Hardanger as it felt suitably January-ish, although I frogged the entire whipped backstitch border so that I could use (the very last of my) petite silk lame braid in white instead to tie in with the PTB pearl I'd used for some of the star stitches.  It is stitched on 25ct white lugana using DMC #5 in 211 and white, Jodyri Designs Alaskan Beauty #5 perle, DMC #8 perle, PTB10 and PSL02 and a delica bead in lavender:

 

 

All materials from stash

 

So there you have it, the results of my stitchy weekend!  I have no particular order in which I will work my four WIPs, just whatever I fancy at the time.  When one is finished I'll add another piece in from the list, or just keep whittling them down until I can have another four starts as I did in the Summer and Autumn/Winter last year.

 

I will be back at the end of the month to share any progress I have - I'm never very good at sharing WIP pics unless they have a definite point of closure e.g a page or part finish as I think if I just keep stitching there will always be more to show lol!

 

Happy Stitching!