Saturday, January 8, 2011

Yes, I Repeated Myself

I usually don't like to stitch the same design a second time, especially immediately after stitching it the first time. But I made an exception this time. As mentioned previously, I stitched "Catrina's Christmas" by Keslyn for my friend, Donna, for Christmas.  When I showed the design to my stitch group before Christmas, several mentioned that they'd like to do it too sometime.

Stitching it was a lot of fun, but as I'm sure you've all experienced, sometimes there are things that are not intuitively obvious from the instructions. Sometimes you learn as you go along, the best way to stitch a band or motif. And sometimes you even find ambiguities or errors in a chart. And as I worked on it I realized that it would make a great teaching piece because of the things I learned as it progressed.  So I played with colors and fibers and made my choices. I showed you my first night's work several days ago. I finished it today and I am quite pleased.



I used Waterlilies "Geranium" as my pink overdyed, Splendor 814 (pink) and 906 (green), DMC #8 Perle Coton 368, and  Kreinik #4 braid 001J (silver metallic), stitched on dark teal 28 count linen. The beads are Mill Hill 553 and 4mm cranberry bicone beads.

Here's a close up that show all of the various pieces. I hope having stitched it twice and taken copious notes will make it easier and more fun for those who choose to take the class.  Frankly, selecting your fabric and fiber colors may be the hardest part!