Blackwork Quilt 2 - Finished

I thought I had finished this and then remembered that I still had to outline it. Grumble grumble. I also found a big mistake which was SO annoying.

Anyway, it's done at least, and the pattern is now for sale on Etsy.

I'm feeling a little blocked in designing patterns that are sale-able. I do want to finish that robot sampler which I hit a block on, and there's an idea with foxes that I'd love to make work. It's one where I know EXACTLY how I want it to look but I'm having trouble getting there.

After that, I'm planning to transfer a bunch of entries from my second grade journal to one big piece of cloth and embroider them along with some drawings from the same period. Is that silly? I think it will be sort of neat, though now I wonder what on earth I'll do with it.

Blackwork Quilt

I could have sworn I'd posted update pictures of this piece already! Apparently my brain has gone hooey.

Soo, this is the piece. There have been some issues. Didn't have enough of the one hand-dyed thread for the squares, went to get more, but I'd written down the wrong number. Realized that the sun had faded the other pieces anything, so waiting to use more of that would still leave problems. 

So I used one green-blue kind and one yellow-green kind, then decided to do have the piece is more greenish colors and half in more yellowish colors. It's not really noticeable enough though. I now have many things I wish I'd done with the the corner pieces, but oh well.

I'm doing the remaining white parts in dark purple (154) half stitches. I don't dislike the piece, but I can't help thinking about what I *would* have done if I'd sat and given myself time to think about the choices. I wish I could make myself go through all the options ahead of time, but I don't seem to have the knack. I'm slower with my color choices now, at least, but that's as far as I've come.

Blackwork Quilt - finished!

Well, I had a few days in a row last week when I wasn't able to get any stitching done, so this did take longer than expected.

Here it is though, finally all finished and the pattern is for sale in my Etsy shop. I plan to do two or three more patterns with different quilt designs.

It is quite a lot of stitching, especially the background which took one and a half skeins of floss. I wish you could see it all in person, where the colors are more vibrant and the whole thing looks neater. Blackwork is just hard to photograph, I find.

Blackwork Quilt Motif - WIP 04

Well, hello! Look at this piece with half the background stitched. That's a whole skein of green 935 on there. Now of course I'm out, so it will be at least tomorrow before I can start again. I will eventually outline the entire outside edge as well, just to neaten it up a bit.

At 4:30 the sky got so dark I couldn't use only natural light to stitch! We just had a massive storm, and it's still raining, so it might pick back up again. We're all excited about tomorrow, as the high temperature is *only* 87. 

This is me dying of heat exhaustion. This is me realizing that even my cold water felt a little warm at 9:30 am! This is me praying that some nice person in Scotland would like to adopt me.

I've got a few new patterns to start and I'm feeling rushed and overwhelmed, like I never accomplish anything. I've certainly been ignoring the housework in favor of embroidery. 26 craft projects completed and 90 books read isn't so bad for six months work, I guess, but it's hard to keep that in mind.

Speaking of books, how much do I recommend A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel? A million times! A billion times! It's about her life as a kid in a very small town (pop. 300) in Indiana, and she writes it from the perspective, and in the voice of, her kid self (up to about age nine, I think). It's SO good and I especially recommend the audio edition, which is read by the author.

Blackwork Quilt Motif - WIP 03

Well, the main part is done now!

I ended up using one less color than I'd planned, because it blended into the fabric too much when stitched. I think using the blue-purple shade again was a good idea anyway, as it further reduces busyness.

Typically, I've completely changed the way I'm doing the background. Instead of doing another fill pattern, I'm just using straight lines. I *think* what I'll do is have all the lines pointing to the center of the star (it will end up being a perfect square)

So the corner pieces will have diagonal lines slanting inward, the triangles on the top and bottom will have vertical lines, and the triangles on the side will have horizontal ones. Is that clear? Does it sound like a horrible idea? Have I gone mad with power?!

I sketched it out and it looked good, but haven't changed the proper pattern yet.

Blackwork Quilt Motif WIP 02

Here's some more progress on this. I love how quickly blackwork goes, compared to cross-stitch. Obviously it depends on the pattern and the level of detail, but I think it will always go more quickly anyway.

Once I have all the diamonds filled I'll go back to the DMC color project for a bit. Actually I tend to get a bit antsy when I'm not working on anything snarky or generally humorous, as though I'm betraying the name of my store and blog.

I'll be back to that soon enough, I'm sure.