Sunday stitching, Easter Sunday

Getting near the end of this last shade of grey, and wondering which colour to use next.  

Sunday stitchings

Sunday stitching, second Sunday in March

There will be no Sunday stitchings next week as I will be giving a talk.  This week's progress was slowed as the talk for the last portion of the meeting was both inspirational and emotional.  It is a tad difficult to sew when your eyes get misty.

So here it is.  

Graduation portrait two

So on to the second graduation portrait, I had set myself a high standard with the first which made this one daunting, it had to reach the same level.  I found my first bit of procrastination in trying to find the shield/motto for her university.  A more modern institution to her husband's, I never did find one, I guess it did not have one.

Then it took a little while to sort the material for her dress (I went with satin) and the colour of the hood, they were so close in tone.

Sort out the order for assembling tack it down and start the detailing.

The eyes on the first portrait went too well, I was nervous it would not work out this time.  I worried without cause, I feel that the eyes here turned out exceptionally well.  Therein I had a problem, I worked on the eyes early on, a mistake, those eyes were full of mute accusation. Why because she had no mouth.  Not for a short time for a long time. Everything else was getting stitched.  Hair, tassels, hands, rings (more metallic thread) collar bone everything and anything not to do the mouth.  Teeth, that is what scared me, and open smile with teeth.  First attempt was carefully unpicked, as was the second and third.  I just could not get teeth to work, there would be months between working myself up to another attempt, or was it years.  

It was easy to let other projects elbow their way it, take priority be started and finished and still those eyes watching... 

At last I reached the only logical conclusion, don't do the teeth, let the eye and brain of the viewer fill it in.

I think it worked. I think it became an equal companion to the first portrait.  A fitting reflection of the  equal partnership in this marriage. 

So now I had five blocks, what was I going to do with them. That required some thinking and staring at the blocks,the engagement,the wedding,graduation lion,and graduation portrait  and some more thinking and staring.  I will leave you thinking about what you would do with them and tell and show what I did in another post later.

(addition 2024 as I have discovered a Korean group and become very fond of their music both as a group and their sols endeavours so here is a link to a song with a title relevant to the hardest part of this  block for me, the song lyrics however have nothing to do with the post at all!)

Sunday Stitching update.

Missed last week, still filling in with the light grey, making progress towards the next stage and the prospect of colour. 

Always in pairs

how could I offer to make something for one Missionary and not his companion, they come in pairs.  The answer is of course that I couldn't.  The American half of the pair also surprised me with his choice. A racoon.  I had in my head that I had a couple of racoon designs I could choose from in my pattern books , so I said yes.

This is the design I chose.

I made it into a card, as I had with the earlier dragon although sorting out a message to go inside did not require an online translator this time.

Oh, I almost forgot again to provide design details. It is from this book.

The Graduation a portrait.

Graduating students have a formal portrait taken and my friend send me a copy of his.  Now this is the point at which the project started to morph once again.  I decided to do a block using the portrait picture.  However this time, given the subject matter the likeness needed to be better, the increased size helped but it still took more time, quite a lot more time. 

The face had an adjustment or two after I started to get the eyes right.  I had marked the face out with a yellow washable pen.  It took more than a few washes for it to come completely out and until it did he had a decidedly jaundiced look

Once again I used padding, although it was even more marked in this instance, and gold metallic thread for his wedding ring and silver for the ring on the other hand. 

I also included in the top right the coat or arms and motto for his university.  I was rather pleased with it when it was finished but the time taken had eroded my plans for the blocks becoming a quilt. 

 It would probably not have been finished till he was ready for his pension.

I have managed with this picture to cut off the top of his head gear!

Graduation Portrait

I had planned block with images of his homes, a world map with little stars for places he and his wife had lived or visited, blocks with the other children in their growing family..oh yes I had lots of plans.  It would have been an amazing thing (as is the way with projects in my head). However the reality of it made me realise it was just not going to be practical. 

So was this the place to stop, with quartet of blocks? graduation lion, the wedding, the engagement and this one. No, as I had another picture, both my friends had been students when they met and married, so there was another copy of a graduation picture I had received, and that is a story for the next post on this project.

St Davids Day

This is a little card I made for mother's day some years ago, I quite forget when.

the image seemed appropriate to share for St David's Day and 1st day of Spring here in the U.K

No time for a portrait ?

how about a dragon?

A visiting missionary got his eye on Nantucket Rose and thinking it a painting asked, pointing at the cross stitch, if he sat still would I do one of him.

After some explaining (which was made difficult as the gentleman in question speaks a limited amount of English and I speak no Marshallese) that  a cross stitch portrait was definitely not possible I asked what he might otherwise like.  He said a dragon, that was a surprise, then again maybe the various dragons displayed in the room may have given him the idea.  Then he noted that I had two weeks to do it as he expected to be moving on soon.

This is what I made, just a small dragon with the Missionaries initial (surname) and hopefully it will eventually go home with him to the Marshal Islands.

Little dragon

I tried to find something I could write in the card in Marshallese.  That was more difficult than I had anticipated. I found some single words however, word combinations appear to alter meanings.

I was rather wary of using something without confirmation it was going to say what I meant it to say.

I took the risk and used what I hope were the words for hello/goodbye and friend.

yokwe and motta.

I may never know if I got it right .

Joanne P 's question below noted I forgot to say where this design came from, it is from the same book as the witch I made for 2015's  Halloween Blog Hop.  the designer is Barbara Sesock.

He was right about his moving on I understand Halifax will be aiding him with his endeavours to speak English.

Sunday stitching update for today

It is just as well I am still filling in with the lightest of the grey shades.  Today, I was feeling rather tired, anything more complicated would have been beyond me.  However, I needed the stitching more than ever, not just to keep me focused but to keep me awake.  That is no comment on the quality of today's talks, just on how overtired I was.

Graduation Lion

Graduation Lion

Moving on from The Engagement and The Wedding, this is a composite from two photographs of my friend, his wife and their daughter.

One of the traditional places for graduating students from his university to have pictures taken on the Big Day (other than in front of The Royal Albert Hall were the ceremony takes place) sitting on one of lion statues in the quad. 

We had to wait for a lion to be free (and the other lion to be briefly unoccupied) to get the pictures and with others waiting, the time for posing was limited.  Therefore the good shot with my friend and his wife was not a good one with their daughter and vise versa.  So I put the two together.

The angle of the picture did make my friends foot look a bit bigger than it really is, just a bit bigger mind you.

This picture does not do the lion justice.  This square saw the introduction of padding into the design. And now there were three squares.