all together going for a snooze.
there are pink blanks already cut (Mrs Jackson again) nine I think so there may be more of these little ladies ahead but I expect it will be some time before that as my attention turns to more seasonal projects as the nights draw in and the time towards Christmas reduces apace.
pick, stick, pick, stick, try not to get hair or hand stuck and repeat over and over and...
this is where I am up to, the picture gives me the distance to better see the developing image as close to it remains a bit disappointing.
Once finished it is going to need a large room to be displayed with sufficient distance for suitable viewing.
Oh here is an update..I was not enjoying this, gave it to my BFF and CLICK HERE to see what happened to it next
I had high hopes for the completion of Everest and its reflection (I know there isn't one in real life but there is on the pattern) but alas I under estimated the amount still to go or over estimated my stitching speed.
Although this is just two sessions of conference, Saturday and Sunday mornings. The others will be sufficient I am sure, well if I can keep my eye in whilst listening.
Now that might sound odd but a neutral tone is still a tone and you need the right tones to make something work just as you envisage.
I had intended to take some of my Chorley Material (link to an explanation of Chorley material ) and make postage stamp style panels, then join them up and see what size it reached and go from there to whatever happened.
So strips cut from the fabric squares, sewn together, cut into strips (of squares) and sewn together.
I was tootling along OK then something was just off, with the number of strips and the lengths. Must have cut one of the strips just that bit thinner, making the block from that set shorted.
A bit muddled about the best way to proceed I paused, with four sets of large blocks finished a couple of sets of four strips sewn together and several single strips.
Sometimes when a project decides to assert its individuality and desire to be uniquely different from what I had planned the project and I need a bit of a time out.
With one thing and another that was quite a long pause this time and was only ended due to a combination of things. A trip to the loft to look for a picture frame in the stash of frames was not in itself successful, but as I was up there anyway a bit of material stash sorting happened, and as oft is the case I came across a bag with bits and thought the weight of a large piece of mostly cream (with a green line leave pattern on it) might go with the Chorley blocks and perhaps work to get me back on track.
Down it came and was spread out on my equivalent of a design wall (top of a double bed) and the blocks and strips laid on top to get a feel for them together.
It was a no go, it just was not working, I did have what I felt was a nice arrangement for the Chorley bits but not with the loft material. It needed a plain material in a neutral shade. Alas I did not have that to hand and thought there was going to be another long pause.
However, the very next day I popped into a charity shop (suitably masked of course and hand sanitiser at the door) and spotted a curtain, just the one but it looked to be big enough even disregarding a patterned bit at the top,(click here to see what happened to the patterned top) the right weight of material possibly the right colour (although without a bit of the other fabric with me this was a leap of faith). And bonus it was lined (lining is always good, depending on the quality it can be lining for bags or the base for an embroidery test material for dye pens oh lots of things.
I bought it, unpicked it, cut off the patterned bit and back to the design bed.....this was going to work. I did have to do a bit of unpicking and sewing on the Chorley blocks to get them to size. With a few little bits left over which are destined for the current bits a quilt
The result of finding the right neutral on this occasion.
Now I could just say get this laid out and with a bit of contortion may even be able to get it sandwiched, but not feeling in a contortionist mood and I have yet to decide on a quilting plan. Always much easier to put the quilting plan onto the top before sandwiching. So it will once more wait however, I have at least the material for the backing and binding picked out, going to use a dusty lime green.
It took me three attempts to get the stars to work, it was the order of the stitches that was the key to getting the lines to stay put. I have obscured the date on the sampler for the child's privacy.
it sat in the frame just nice and was off to the mother via intermediaries due to the various lockdown arrangements.
She let me know via Facebook Messenger that she was pleased with it, indeed she included it in a montage picture when she updated family and friends on her baby's progress.
that is the song that surfaced in my mind this week as my BFF and I were working on our tandem project.
I could not quite catch it, and asked my friend about it and she agreed immediately it was a song that had resonance with her too. A bit of thought and we moved past it being a nursery rhyme and delved back in the past to connect with our early school days and a circle game from playtime.
That lead to discussions of the different playtime games we could recall. Whilst we both went to school in the same town, we did not attend the same schools and there are a few years between us so there were differences to the games, the rhymes and how they were played.
In a world with a lot of stressful things going on this was a nice relaxing conversation.
Now as to my stitching progress you might be thinking I was working on bluebells of one size or another, nope.
I started, as I finished on the big trees, but that was not being fun, so time for a new colour, well a new shade at the least. More green, bluebell leaves, so maybe in and out was the right song indeed.
My BFF whilst also in the green was in a different green pop on over to her blog, here is THE LINK , to see her progress.
all of the cross stitching finished, then backstitching time. Brings the details on the baby out, sharpens the points of the moon and added the name.
I usually add the date, the time and the weight, but for this one it felt like only the date would fit. At this point the stars originally planned did not feel like the right fit.
Nor did the various options that I tried after that, my BFF brought me some soft silver thread as an alternative option. It was not suitable but it did help me reach a decision.
I had looked in my stash of frames for inspiration and found one that looked OK size wise, but the more I looked at it and at the picture of the nursery provided by the grandmother the less I liked it.
A trip to the shops and I was standing debating between three frames, a silver one (too sparkly) an old fashioned white frame and a simple modern frame.
I ended up having a chat with a gentleman who was also frame shopping and he helped me decide on the simple one.
So I had the frame, just needed to add stars that fit.
as previously mentioned people offer me random material and I most often say yes. Oft they then head up to the loft for a bit of a thinking time. (the bits of material not the people!)
As regularly happens a trip to the loft for one thing unearths others and I am apt to get side-tracked.
I was after some off white material with green leaves on it as I thought it would go with some blocks I had been working on (I did find it and then decided it did not go, sure that project will progress at some point and get a post of its own) and came across two pieces of brown material with a sequined strip on them. The remains of a NEXT skirt in pink with lining.
So, down they came, well brown bits, skirt band and lining material. Band unpicked from the lining, (oh a handle, maybe with a brown lining), brown bits the outer bag and the pink lining, well pink lining.
So her it is, a fancy bit of a bag.
I am not sure if I am going to add buttons to the handles where they join the fancy section, or maybe some sequins next time I have them out.
nope, not in this instance. I was going to do the crescent moon in shades of grey to echo the moon wall decal used in the nursery. I was thinking a variegated thread would simplify the process.
However, whilst looking for a grey I came across a purple and that was an even better choice for co-ordinating with the nursery theme.
I had a couple of false starts deciding where to have the darker shades and I also ended up altering the point to the right of the baby. (Yes I did a little bit of back stitching to get a feel for the face)
I'm reasonably happy with the way the purple moon turned out.
that's where I spent most of my time this session. I started with big blue bell stems, then went back to those middle sized trees for the rest of the single shade leaves.
Then a bit of large tree trunk till my BFF finished the section she was doing and we could both work on the second variegated thread together. Now this is not the shade indicated in the pattern, I shall let my friend tell you about that in her blog as she discovered both problem and solution.
It was indeed interesting, this section is in one strand not two, but there is an area in this shade that is in two strands, that will be interesting.
Here is The LINK to my friends post so you can see how her version is progressing.
