Wisteria - WIP 04

Last picture I posted

I made a new friend yesterday and completely used up every scrap of energy I would have had for the next three days. I can not describe how awful my legs feel. It was worth it, but ugh, my body.

Despite a very long and tiring week in general, I did get back to work on my wisteria project (aka the piece from hell). It's nice seeing so much completely filled in space. I've been simplifying as I go along, so when it wants three different purples for a span of 14 stitches I just use the middle shade. Maybe it won't be quite as lovely at the finish, but without the simplification I would never finish this. 

Progress!

At this point, I'm really trying to work from left to right. It's still a difficult project that I won't finish any time soon, but I think I'll be happier to pick it up now. I'd like to fill in the remaining bits that are mostly surrounded by other stitching and then I'll go to work on something else for my store.

Wisteria Part 3

Thus far, this week have been really busy, with less time than usual available for needlework. On the plus side I found out that there's an embroidery group that meets at a nearby library once a month.

I'm hoping to go, though initially I will probably be a bit careful about which projects I bring. Now, I know some very open-minded older ladies with broad senses of humor, but all the same...

Here's all the new progress on the wisteria piece! I'm getting a bit lazy and cheating by sometimes filling in the one or two squares of something with whatever similar color I'm already using in that area. That's right, I'm a rule breaker!

I got some of the printable Fabri-Solvy to try out. Maybe it will be my perfect method for pattern transfer, so I'll be starting a new non-counted embroidery project soon.

I'm so knackered though that tonight I am going to watch some Bones, eat some leftovers, and drown myself in tea.

Wisteria Progress Two

This piece looks less like a map of ocean depths now that the bee and all that green has been added. I had to change all the colors for the bee (otherwise it would have been bright red-brown and green!), and I'm curious to see how the flowers will look when it's finished. 

With most of it there are so many tiny bits of color, and SO many colors (50) that I just can't just whether those will be correct. With that yellow blob the shades seemed to be reversed from the colors under the pattern symbols and in the small picture of the pattern. It had the darker shade being stitched where it shows the lighter shade. That's the only color I changed, because those shades were so close that it wouldn't have been detectable when stitched.

I finally finished my Asterix pattern though, so I've gotten a good start on that. However, now I'll have to make another Obelix pattern so that his size will be in scale with Asterix's. 

Even with basically having all the time in the world it still feels like there's so little time. I suppose that's always the way though. When my sister and I managed a book store and had few weeks without overtime it felt the same way. Art and crafts are great, but to be honest I'd rather be rushing around in a bookstore, calling magazine distributors to yell at them, dealing with difficult customers, and trying to be tactful towards aspiring (and horrible) local authors. That, my friends, is heaven.

I am actually quite bad at crafts...

This is the progress thus far on my wisteria piece, but of course it's too early and scattered to be a clear image. It looks like a strange map at the moment.

I know what you're supposed to do is put basting stitching around a square and stitch everything within that square. I'm sure that helps cut down on fatal mistakes that require you to unpick hundreds of stitches.

Really I'm just no good at crafts. I never glanced at a cross-stitch book (or embroidery book really, except to look up how to do fancy stitches). There was some Aida around, so I started stitching without even drafting a pattern.

Right now I'm thinking that after I finish my chintz napkin I'll go back to my long-neglected Frida Kahlo piece. I do miss doing non-counted embroidery, but I have to spend so much time drafting and stitching patterns to sell in my Etsy store. Even now I'm working on a pattern using another Terry Pratchett quote: ("Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.")

Apartment inspections are next Monday, so I'll probably be doing less stitching than usual this week. C'est la vie!

Celtic G - finished!

Well the G is all done and now it's ironed and framed as well! I'm fairly pleased with it. I would have done the date differently, but needed to do it the same way it appears on my nephew's. Though really, I'm pretty sure they'll never be confused about when they were born, so it doesn't matter.

Since that finished I've been working on the pattern for my Mock the Week - Unlikely Small Ads piece. It. Is. Frustrating. I have a newly discovered sympathy for the newspaper layout people. Though to be fair, they're not dealing with trying to find numerous yet diverse backstitch fonts and whether enough room can be made to squeeze in some cross-stitch fonts. 

It is *almost* done though. I'm just waiting to hear back from an English friend about the way something would be written there.

When I got too frustrated with it/couldn't sit with the computer anymore, I started working on a photo cross-stitch piece, as My Photo Stitch is my new favorite website. I've converted a number of flower photos I've taken, and actually started working on this wisteria and bee one. Let me just say, I hate this kind of stitching and pattern, as it's so...random. I do love the site though, and I'm trying to find good pictures of my niece and nephew to use.