DIPs

     I've been working on a couple of designs for the past year. Seems like forever, but it's only been a year. One, I've literally been working on. The other, I conceptualized but passed along to a model stitcher more experienced than I in the type of stitching it requires.

     The one I've been laboring over is Morning Glory. This design falls in line with my usual style, up close and personal with a flower from my (or someone else's) garden. I took lots of my own pictures, looked at lots of my sister's pictures, decided on one, and can't remember whose it was. Eh. After charting it in Anchor floss, I decided to do the flower itself in overdyed cottons. I thought it might be interesting and perhaps a little less intense a stitching experience than the usual confetti I use to get the look I want. It's been a long process.

     Here's my first go at it. I had gotten pretty far along when I discovered a mistake that couldn't stay and started the process of negative stitchery to reach the point where it could be corrected. (Pardon the wrinkles; it's been rolled/folded up for months.)

     Along the way, I decided I didn't like the way the background was turning out. Not to mention, I kept finding bad things in the flower, wasn't feeling the way I'd been working the overdye, and was generally unhappy with the whole thing. Best to just start fresh than start to hate it. So I changed the fabric, tackled the focal image, and put the background on the back burner of my mind.

     I recently finished the flower and am much happier with the result.

     I know how I want to stitch the background now to achieve the soft, faded look I wanted but wasn't getting even though I had chosen washed-out colors to stitch it in. You can see, barely, where I've begun. Maybe it won't take me another year to finish stitching this.

     It's interesting to see how the color differs in these two photos. I took both on the same day, in the same place, with the same settings, but the purples look different. Perhaps it's an optical effect created by the different colors of the fabric. All I know is, the same threads were used for both. Speaking of the threads, I found the range of purples in Anchor deficient, making the switch to overdyes even more important in the final analysis. Here are the original Anchor colors along with the overdyes from Carrie's Creation Threads and Crescent Colours.

     The other design was inspired by a piece of Lakeside Linens & Designs fabric, Lemon Ice to be precise. I'll talk about that one the next time.

     kthxbai