Sunflower/beehive panel Friday, Jul 28 2006

So starteth the “Blessings of the Earth” serie panel, related to beehives and sunflowers. I saw it as a nice way to have some rest after St.George, but to keep stitching something. CM is a BAP and quite bigger than any other *g* so I need something medium-sized and able to produce an instant and pleasant sight.The panel is not very small, I think with all three parts it will be roughly 25/15 cm. For now I am doing the first part which is also experimental - if I like it, I’ll do the rest. I am also stuffed with appropriate color evenweave, so the result will match the idea very closely. Which is good.

I don’t think I’ll stitch the saying at the bottom. “Life grows sweeter every day” is not exactly the deep thought I’d see on my wall. Also, without the whole bottom line the panel will look much better, IMO.

Didn’t do much yet, but for me it’s kinda enough so to see that the “shadow” effect from 1/2 stitches done with 1 strand will look good.

 

Will scan more when there’s more progress and the pictures forming.

And that’s all I got

3 Responses »

 

Finished! Thursday, Jul 27 2006

Now as it often goes, I got something to work on with a tight deadline (2 days, to be exact), so all non-work related plans went to limbo. I managed to stitch some in the late evenings while watching CSI (*grin*), but that was far away from the initial plans to sit and just finish the thing.

Anyway, after that I sat and finished it. Believe me, it’s good to finally finish such a BAP

Now more in detail about what I did with it. 

It didn’t went into the scanner, of course. So “what I did” was to battle to get the two pictures together with Photoshop. I struggled with stamp tool to get rid of the border that was visible between the two adjusted pictures. Seems I also ate part of horse’s foot along the way. Part of the tail had to become a third picture to get with the rest, but I simply left it the way it is. I’m so tired that I can’t write what exactly I did with the design itself. I don’t think there’s a need to go in so much detail. *I* say it’s finished So…just enjoy it.

(linked from elsewhere bc lj is not responding)

A bigger scan is here:

http://image009.mylivepage.com/chunk9/226279/165/St.%20George%20and%20the%20Dragon.jpg

P.S. I just checked and saw that my first report on this project was on June 6-th. So this makes roughly 2 months (!) until finish? (and two other small finishes in-between). What means TO HAVE TIME to stitch!

3 Responses »

 

Some more progress (St.George) Wednesday, Jul 19 2006

I am (still) not complaining on the amount of tiny areas where you have to change thread color every 4-5 stitches. Although I maybe should complain, because such areas are way too much here. I am starting to think this is very unnecessary. If I have to work such areas it’s fine, we have an expert-level design here, but seen from the artistic perspective, the heaps of small details everywhere are definitely watering down the image as a whole. It was kinda designed without much thought about the general perspective, rather trying to work out every single space on it to be filled with something different. What I lack to see here - a contrast achieved through adding more plain areas. Such contrast would make the highly detailed areas to stand out, be visible, noticed by the eye and would give them a greater value. Now when all is over-detailed, there’s no focus in this design. Good that I skipped the border, it’s full to the top with more various tiny details.

Of course I’ve yet to do all the backstitching after finishing, and then to see if things won’t change and a focus to appear. Perhaps it will look fine with all the backstitch done; I am forgetting what major effect the backstitching has over a design.

Now the St.George’s figure…

I like him; for the first time something (or someone) in this design has an atmosphere. I think it is necessary to have people in the designs, maybe they’re those who actually add atmosphere, something living, maybe emotions.

And of course I did my favorite trick to do when I get tired of something - to spare some parts of the design which I think unnecessary to be there. He has very long and detailed feathers on the helm, with less feathers (and less work) he looks just as good as he would with them. It’s a matter of estimating whether some detail is really needed and if it has a meaning related to the whole. Or is just there for the sake of itself.

I think I’ll cut out some more from dragon’s tail that is meant to be protruding almost to the top. Will see.

4 Responses »

 

Protected: Give me something to read Saturday, Jul 15 2006

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Enter your password to view comments

 

The Wizard figure Friday, Jul 14 2006

Am I fast? This is of course without the backstitching. I am thinking on whether to not firstly finish the whole thing (when that will be?), wash it so to make the fabric lay properly, and then do the backstitches. But will see.

The reason he looks so tall (or tiny) is because most of his figure is hidden by the next figure in the design. I stitched what is visible (rather what is left from him, heh.) The height is such indeed, but while it may look unusual at this scan here, when there’s a wall done to the top and the windows, he will gain his actual normal height.

Also remember when I was pondering about the faces and if they will look fine enough. Doing the first face was the moment to decide - to redo the faces design or not. And I saw that there’s no need to. Was a bit surprised, but I think he’s ok. And funny

3 Responses »

 

Just a note Thursday, Jul 13 2006

that wordpress currently has an issue with comments count. Most often it’s with blog owner’s comments, they do not appear in the number of comments for the entry, while actually they’re there.

So in case someone’s waiting for a response from me about something or just believes I had replied, well I did.

Hope they resolve this soon.

More info http://wordpress.com/forums/topic.php?id=2396

No Responses »

 

Interested Tuesday, Jul 11 2006

The Husband almost brought me to shock a few days ago. I was looking at St.George hanging on the couch and murmuring to myself something like “half done, two pages left still” and similar incomprehensible stuff. He suddenly interrupts and says, kinda annoyed: ”Yeah, but I’m interested in the other one.” (Corte Medieval, that is). “Interested?!”I say. He quickly steps back and murmurs incomprehensible stuff like “well no, not exactly interested in the way you are, but well, umm.”

“Umm” would be pretty enough for me to understand. I (again) put St.George aside then, and started working on CM. In the evenings I see Husband peeking at what I am doing and giving out some “hmm” and “mhm”s. One evening he approached me and nodded at the stitching, smiling. So now my goal is to do the Wizard figure, to show him what it looks like.

It feels very different to have someone beside you who’s interested, even if he doesn’t want to admit it It is giving a great stimuli to continue.

I have no reason to feel guilty of putting George aside for now. The whole left half of the horse is done, incl. the lower parts of the human figure. Guess I need some rest.

 I’ve also been thinking about setting (or getting) a kind of box to keep all my threads in while working. Presently I am kitting each project (picking the needed threads) and I keep them in separate little boxes when working on each project. This is mainly the thing that makes a rotation difficult. If some colors repeat in both projects then I have to go to that particular other “project” box, take them, use and then return there again. If I have a large storage box for *all* my threads I could work on two or more projects more easily. I’d take out the color I need, then return it. Numbers will not be mixed as it is now in separate “project” boxes. But it will be difficult to find something:

1. compact enough so to not take much space. It will have to be easily moved and put on the couch next to me.

2. big enough to hold ~400 bobbins. Not that I have so many yet, but I will in future.

A library card box comes to mind. Bad thing is that it’s too big to be constantly moved, and besides it’s doubtful that I’ll find anything similar to this. I will have to ask friends if they don’t have some old furniture for sale or to get rid of, and perhaps there might be some box or small drawer that will be suitable. Like this .

LOL, joking I’ve seen some smaller cardboard drawers for sale, though. This one might just suffice.

One Response »

 

Meh. Thursday, Jul 6 2006

large photo here

http://pics.livejournal.com/ternezia/pic/000bfyzg

So cometh the difficult part of stitching this one. A lot of small detail, a lot of color changing. It is now 60% done and I know I am on the part that just needs to be went through until it comes to the final parts of the horse’s head and St.George himself. Those are easy. Will not hide that I am pushing myself at the moment to work on it. Starting Corte Medieval wasn’t very good idea maybe, because I now also have additional thing to bug me - want to stitch it instead. But if I do, I’ll totally lose the focus and returning to George will be even more difficult. But what do I expect, he’s a BAP and it’s clear that there will be areas that will just call you to say “meh, that’s just huge and endless.” But when you did manage to move on and pass them, and when it’s finally finished…Heh

One new thing I learned (or actually invented) along the way: beads look best when additionally surrounded by backstitch in a darker color.

And that’s all I got…

One Response »

 

Long time, no update Tuesday, Jul 4 2006

I am still here, although there wasn’t much new so to write a whole entry every day. I started on Corte Medieval and made some progress. But after that I stumbled upon an unpleasant situation: for a reason unknown to me the fabric is showing through the stitches. It is the same fabric I am using for St.George, only different color. And with George there’s no such problem; perhaps because it has less dark colors in the design.

Anyway, I then stopped and started to think what I should do. Start it over was a no-go because I 1.already stitched a lot and would be pity for the work I did 2. there’s no smaller count fabric of such type available at the moment.

So in case you’ve chosen a similar 28 count evenweave, read on because the same problem might appear as well.

There’s something in the chart instructions that I pondered before starting it - it reads that dark colors must be stitched with 3 strands. After starting I understood why. See:

 

The problem is very visible with blue colors and darker browns on the stairs base.

But I personally don’t think to stitch some areas with 2 and other with 3 strands is a good decision. The difference will be very visible and will affect the smoothness of the whole piece. As I am caring about the front so much, should I use a “saviour” method that will screw it as well, only in different way? Besides the dark colors are many, and the design is huge. This means I’ll go bancrupcy. That’s unthinkable.

Last option was to ask someone to give advice at the forum. I was very much surprised to what came out and I’ve found a solution with the help of the wonderful girls. They said that sometimes, after you wash, dry and iron the fabric, it tightends. Depending on the fabric of course, but with mine it worked. That morning I cut a small piece from the Corte Medieval fabric, stitched it and then washed and left to dry. Others were waiting for the experiment results, because I am not the only one with this problem.

This is the stitched fabric before washing. The holes between the stitches are clearly visible.

This is it after washing. I gave it around 40 mins to dry, without ironing it wet.

I think there’s quite a difference. So now my problem is no more and I can continue relaxed. No meaning to work with 3 strands, really.

After getting some of the CM done I switched back to St.George because I really want to see it finished (meh.) There’s a lot of work to be done yet and a lot of very small (and annoying) details. So I must not scatter my attention now to something else, or until I at least get to 80% completeness.

One Response »