Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Feel like a little Happy Dance



I finished off my next PS block - E is for Embroidery. How cute is this one! These blocks are so great to work on, large blocks of the same colour, great 28 ct fabric so very easy on the eyes - especially after dealing with the 40 cts of HoHRH or the CHS alphabet. But when you are stitching the PS blocks, you realize how many little details have been included in the design that you don't really appreciate on first glance. I will be sad to finish these off!


I also finished Part II of the Blackbird SAL, a little later than everyone else, because of the surgery and I was waiting to get my WDW 'Thistle' in the mail. I am so glad I broke down and ordered this thread, the colour varies from brownish to pinkish and back again. The effect when stitching is amazing looking and I could never had gotten the same look using DMC.

So now I am scrambling to catch up with the others in Part III which started September 1st.
A huge part of this section will be the grass which is all done in GAST Chamomile. Unfortunately though my Chamomile seems to be quite darker than what appears in the picture and when I stitched against the flower vine in the bottom section, I couldn't see much difference in the 2 colours. I didn't want to go ahead with it as is, because I didn't think I would be too happy with the finished result. So I dug through my DMC and pulled on the equivalent for Chamomile - 371 which is just as dark. I then pulled out 370 which is a lighter shade and decided to use one strand of this and one strand of Chamomile together and hopefully it will give me a lighter green effect than what I was getting and the flower vine will show up against it.

Did I mention that I'm finding these GAST and WDW to be a headache? After looking at everyone else's SAL pieces in the group album, there are such differences in shading from one person's house to another, even though we all used GAST Pebble for it. And the same with the bird and flower dish on top of the house! So I guess the best, is just to use your own judgement as you stitch along these pieces. Its true, no two are ever alike!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad that your surgery went well and you're feeling better!

E is for Embroidery looks great and I love your progress on the BD SAL piece. I agree that overdyed threads like WDW and GAST can be a bit frustrating, especially if you particularly love the colours and shading of the model and you find that your threads don't give the same effect. I think you're right to play around with substitutions to get the effect you want.

Kitty Couture said...

Such lovely stitching! I love your E for Embroidery piece, and the Blackbird design is so pretty :)

Carol said...

E is for Embroidery is adorable - congratulations!

mainely stitching said...

I have also run into problems with overdyeds that are just too close to one another to give a clear difference when I've stitched some BD charts.

Thistle, by WDW, is one of my favorite overdyed threads. :)

Katrina said...

Hi Wendy, good to hear that you're feeling more like yourself after your op :)

your BD looks great, look forward to seeing more on this one :)

Annemarie said...

Hi Wendy, thanks for visiting my blog! I must admit I've never been to yours, which is a shame, because you do such lovely work! I did E is for Embroidery as well, and it was one of my favourites!
Hope you're feeling better!

Margaret said...

What a lovely finish 'E' is. Love your Blackbird SAL. Looking forward to updates.
Margaret

catandturtle said...

Both pieces are awesome! I stitched BD When this you see too and the chamomile gets to be a bit much after 2 skeins. :D Ann.

Von said...

Great to see "E" finished, Wendy!!

BD is looking good too. :D I haven't run into the same frustrations with the overdyes yet, but my experience is limited. Nor have I stitched on anything over 32 ct! Will definitely have to give it a try. :D

Vonna Pfeiffer said...

I love your work! I've just recently become an "admirer" of Prairie Schooler and you're right, their designs are intricate at second glance, I always overlooked them because I thought they were rather blockish and simplistic, but I've really grown to love some of their designs of late...Great job on everything....its beautiful!
:o)