On the verge

Today I realized that remedial or not, my stitching is taking over my life. I have started one of three new projects that I just kitted up. I'm missing a thread here and there, but I'm ready to go on all of them.

The American Needlepoint Guild (ANG) has a new project for the Stitch of the Month, which started this month and ends in December, "A Promise of Mystery," designed by Sue Reed. It really should be called "Project of the Year," since more than one stitch will sometimes be given in a month. What captured my interest? It's a geometric design, and I'm all about geometrics these days.

The designer's color palette was chosen to provide optimal differentiation for teaching, using three families, so I of course chose my own. I went with a monochromatic color scheme, and decided which shade would be which family based on the different kinds of threads in each. Family B, for instance, was the color for which I could find matching (or closely matching) colors in all of the thread types. I'm holding off on the Accentuate for this because (1) nobody in my area seems to carry it and (2) I have no idea how it's to be used so don't want to pick a substitute fiber till I have that last bit of information. How it's used could make the difference between substituting or ordering Accentuate online.

I'm anxiously awaiting February's installment. Meanwhile, I need to get started on "Stars for a New Millenium," for which I now have most of the threads. Yippee!

I am using Brenda Schroff's colorway, "Peacock," which starts with, surprise, surprise, the Thread Gatherer Silk 'N Colors SNC 007 Peacock. It's a departure from my usual go-to palette of purples, although there is a nod to purple with the periwinkle tones. The only threads I'm missing are the J.L. Walsh Silk & Wool and a Trebizond color that's been discontinued. I'll have to see if there's a suitable alternative in Trebizond, and if not, find a suitable alternative thread and color. I did substitute a couple of Neon Rays for two colors in the colorway because I wanted to maintain the texture of the original, and this colorway had used Impressions or Pebbly Perle. Even though I find Neon Rays a struggle to work with! I'm fairly sure that "kill me now" will be my mantra for those sessions of stitching.

I have to get started on the pre-work for this if I want to be ready for the next group meeting on February 7. So that will be two monthly bits of stitching I'll be doing this year. You may agree that I must have lost my mind when I signed up for ANG's Correspondence Course "Florentine Fancywork," by Toni McKelley.

Again, I have modifed the colors, but only because I didn't have the right color of Rainbow Gallery's Overture. I had one that had a very similar, softer range. I just stepped down a shade on some of the other threads, varied the tone on others, have one that I can't decide on so am reserving judgment till I start stitching (the two purple Splendors), and one that remained the same because there just wasn't a lighter alternative.

This one is only a 6-month project. Guess I'll have to keep an eye out for a project to fill out the rest of the year.

kthxbai.