9.25.2012

It's Finished!

     It's happy dance time! I finally finished stitching "Stella Polaris" by StitchPlay Designs, a cyberclass I started in June.


     Isn't she pretty? I really love the way this worked up. I used Caron Collection Watercolours Wheat Fields as the basis for the colorway. Although the purples are definitely part of my usual color palette, orange is rarely something I go for.

     Those of you who are familiar with my stitching history are probably astonished at the speed (yes, I call this speed) with which I finished this piece! Once I grasped that silly double fan doubled stitch, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. It was mostly a matter of making the time to stitch. In fact, I finished it in a marathon session Sunday night/Monday early morning. I could see the end and decided to stitch as long as I could without making mistakes. (No, I didn't go over this with an eye for finding any mistakes. Any mistakes are personal design decisions, à la undocumented features in computer software.)

     So what am I doing now? I'm so glad you asked! At my ANG chapter meeting on Thursday, we started Marilyn Owen's "Ornament Quartet" from the Chapter Project Book. We could choose one of four different designs (or all four, of course). I selected the string art design (no surprise there). Here's my progress (all done last night, as I had to rip out what I had done at the meeting because the thread wasn't right):


     I'm using one of Nature's Palette's beautiful hand-painted canvases, Coffee Metallic, as my ground. The threads are Planet Earth Fiber 6-Ply Silk Hand Paint, Gloriana Princess Perle Petite, Kreinik #8 Braid, and Caron Collection Soie Cristale. The starting point for my thread decisions was the Planet Earth silk. After Dawn and my visit to the TNNA market in Baltimore a few weeks ago, I contacted Planet Earth and requested some samples. This is one of the ones they sent, and I just swooned! I needed to use it, and right away. How fortuitous that the chapter project called for a 6-strand floss. I had also wanted to use this rich brown canvas, and they played very well together. I pulled the happily coordinating Princess Perle Petite from another WIP (which someday I may get back to and for which I'll have to get more of this), then picked up the Soie and Kreinik (thanks to Donna for having just the right color to convince me that my first choice was wrong).

     There's not much more to this ornament. The Walnetto is repeated on the other three sides of the center motif, there's a Brick Couching stitch filling in the sides, and Mini Crescents fill in the corners. Will I finish this as an ornament? Stay tuned. You never know.

     I'm also still plugging away at "Carnival" from Seminar. I do love this piece and hope to finish it in the near future. Now if only I could apply myself to "Stars for a New Millennium."

     Kthxbai.

3 comments:

  1. Congratulations on a great finish! Very pretty!
    Love, love, love the new piece. I can see why you swooned!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! I'm going to have to find another use for that thread, as this design doesn't show it off as much as I'd like. Fortunately, it also doesn't use very much of it.

    ReplyDelete