BFF SAL Variations on a Theme 1, Christmas

 and into our second month of our new "themed" week and starting with some update pictures. You may recall that we were not restricting ourselves to our weekly facetime sewing sessions. That we can work on anything within the theme whenever we want.

So my blackwork Christmas themed piece was very much a "want " to sew. Firstly to finish the two strand stitching round the edge of the design, the snowflakes. Then the outline of the tree, and as always with outlines the relief when they join up where they are supposed to.

Then the fill with one strand, and the relaxation of the repeat pattern. There should have been some baubles here, outlined in two strands and with different fills. However I was all about the total fill and just left them off.

As I moved onto the second level of the tree I changed to a pointy needle as the original was worked on evenweave and I had green in 14 count, so a pointy needle was needed to make it work

This reminds me very much of a quilting pattern I hope to try someday. All straight lines that give the illusion of curves.

Once that third fill was completed I moved onto the single strand stitching on the snowflakes and a touch of metallic at the top of the tree.

And then the tree was completed, leaving me to decide how to decorate it given I had deviated from the pattern and left off the intended baubles.

I did have a plan, some time ago, quite a long time ago now I think about it, I bought a bag of mixed sequins in bronze tones. I have used some of them on a Previous Project. It is always nice to incorporate something from the "useful someday" stash into a project.

It is finished for the moment,(there were some French Knots and I considered replacing them with beads but I quite like it as is) the final finishing may wait till the other patterns in the series are complete. (As a reminder they are from issue 123 of Cross Stitch Gold,  Red Work Cards by Durene Jones.

Update on the tree completed what was I actually working on tonight? 

A change to red on white, I had made a start pre stitching session so started the evening like this.

I realised as I worked the top left corner I was a stitch out, too late to correct it so there will be some design deviations that were unintended that may lead to some intended ones.

So this is my end point for the evening. I have some contemplation to do now. I am not sure if that means in the off time I will work on this as much as I did the tree or if it will languish till next month.

To see how my BFF's themed stitching is going Click HERE she has also been stitching "off camera" as she calls it and has quite a bit to show.