Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Antique Look or a Fail?

I've got some photos to share today of my start "Witches Night Out" by Brenda Gervais. I've changed almost all the colours and used overdyed variegated threads I had on hand. But it's not the colours that have me a bit unsure... 

Instead it's the coverage. I know stitchers can debate to the ends of the earth about coverage. I do believe we can all agree that on a full stitched covered piece (ie: HAED, Mystic Stitches, etc) you must have good coverage. But what about on a smaller, more delicate piece? 
I love the traditional, antique look of Gervais' pattern; and in looking at the model you can see that the coverage is far from 100%. 

Note on the photos: you can see the smoky look on the fabric in these photos that was invisible last time. It's a very subtle marbling that I just adore. It's just hard to photograph. 

Now it's important to note that I'm very against bulky coverage. But perhaps this is too little coverage... 

It's 1 strand over 2 on 36ct linen (same count and coverage as called for in pattern). 

Thoughts? 
I'm likely to keep going as is no matter what. But I'd love to hear (good or bad) what others think.

Saturday, September 3, 2016

I was supposed to do laundry...

While downstairs to do some laundry today; I saw a toppling over pile of stash (all bought this year) and decided I should do something about it. 
In sitting down to actually sort and organize I learned three things: 
1) I'm literally out of drawer space for charts
2) I have a lot of great stash (that lives neglected in my dark basement) 
3) ohhh I want to start all of these! Lol. 

So I sorted and made new (smaller) piles of charts. Put a few away that I could and  looked at the five projects I'd 'set aside', presumably to stitch them. 
Now, I haven't had much time to stitch lately and knew the last thing I needed was a start... But I figured I could pull colours... 
So I chose "Witches Night Out" by Brenda Gervais. 
In looking at the beautiful pattern I realized I had only two of the variegated threads needed. So it was time to play the "do I have a colour close game?" 
Here's my (no where near close) colour selections: 
I say nowhere near close because I'm changing a lot of colour elements... Hoping mine still comes out with the vintage look Brenda intended but have a bit more colour to it.

But of course now I needed fabric... You can't really tell in the photo there is a slight grey marbling to the fabric. It's called Smokey Grey in 32ct (my sticky didn't say who did it). My first thought was "oh wow this fabric is perfect, but maybe too nice for this piece!". 

Seriously?! What is wrong with me. This fabric is in my stash with no attached or planned project and it's perfect. I then thought "if I'm going to take time to stitch something then it's ALWAYS worth the best!" 

At least I came to my senses! 
Do you ever do that? Think to yourself that something (fabric, thread, etc) is too special or nice for a piece? 
Do you use it anyway? 

And that laundry I was supposed to do... Got 1 of 3 loads done in 3 hours... I'm going to call that a win.   ;)