Thursday 19 December 2013

the perfect sunset by Maria Diaz in Cross Stitch Collection 231

Uncharacteristically, for this picture in the latest issue of Collection I do not have too many progress piccies - only one, to be precise. However, I do have an interesting (?) story to go with it.
Have you ever wondered what happens if a model stitcher finds out halfway through a project that she can`t finish it before the deadline? I`m not thinking about running out of time and asking the editor for a few extra days, but rather of something serious that will prevent the stitcher from finishing a work completely. The latter happened to the stitcher who started working on this (I don`t know her, not even her name, all I know is that she had to go to hospital for some reason) and she couldn`t finish this landscape. So this is how I got the project - the first time ever I had to continue a work that someone else had started and I quite enjoyed the experience (mostly, because she did such a neat job that almost put mine to shame, lol!). I hope that whoever she is, she`s feeling better now and if she picks up this issue, she`ll like the fruit of our joint effort.


Thursday 12 December 2013

crocheted Despicable Me minion

I`m happy to report that in between stitching tasks, I managed to finish a crochet project as well in the past couple of weeks: I`ve made a strange hybrid of a minion, a weird cross between utter cuteness (with his goggles on) and a possessed jelly bean (without his accessories). You`ll see in a minute what I mean but first let me give credit to the designer of the pattern, which I found here. Truth be told, though, it was only a starting point for me - as always with crochet -, because I`m so hopeless at it: as I don`t see clearly what`s a chain and what`s not, I keep miscounting (even with a stitch marker!), plus I used different yarns from hers with different sized hooks... so as usual with my crochet attempts, this one belongs to the `Played By Ear` category too. And while the jury is still out on whether it was worth all the effort (although Gregory usually loves and appreciates everything I make, but maybe in this instance he would`ve been happier with the battery-operated model that makes all those cute sounds...?), but the main thing is that I finished something that I set out to do, and now I can`t wait to see his little face when he opens it at Christmas! :)
Mr. Cute! :) I deviated from the pattern (again!) and put wires in his arms
so they`re bendy. Unfortunately, I was concentrating on this so hard
that I didn`t pay attention and sew the fingers on the same way on both hands,
so now he has a thumb on the one and a pinky on the other, lol!

Alternative mouth, with slightly big and scary teeth. In the end,
I decided against it and sew a plain line for a smile :)

And without all his accessories... Unfortunately, his legs come off with his trousers,
and without the goggles he has this slightly demented look in his eyes
(I didn`t have brown felt so I ended up crocheting the eyes as well,
hence the fish-like, lifeless stare... oooh, quick, put those goggles back on!)

Thursday 5 December 2013

Kate Knight cushion in The World of Cross Stitching 211

The latest issue of WOCS contains one of my works, the one I simply nicknamed `orange tree` - it might be the Tree of Life for all I know, I just went for the most obvious (it is stitched on a gorgeous, tangerine coloured fabric, maybe Lugana, as far as I remember, but I might be wrong there). As usual, this has been a while, too - actually, it kinda seemed to go on forever: not only because it wasn`t what you`d typically call a stitcher-friendly project (out of the 86 hours it took, I spent over forty just doing the backstitch, and most of this you won`t even notice, e.g. the fiddly individual petals on the 70-odd blue flowers and green leaves around the frame), but also because I started it before my 3-or-4-week summer holiday and finished it after we came back, so it seemed that I`d worked on it for months. :)
I have quite a few progress photos for this project but I`d like to apologise in advance for the quality of some of these. I must have taken them in the evenings, under a reading lamp, or maybe behind drawn curtains - I remember it was very hot when I was stitching this, so I frequently had to darken the room just so that it wouldn`t feel like an oven. Anyway, here they are:

Every journey begins with the first step: a tentative start on Day 1
(photo DEFINITELY taken in sunlight streaming in through window)

Still at the stage of figuring out the best way to go about this design :)

And the solution: stitch dark outlines of flowers as reference points
(plus all 3 shades of green for leaves, so no need to come back later)

Backstitch defining not only flowers and tree but wee birdies as well :)

The above-mentioned fiddly backstitch: one shade darker blue for the petals
and 2 different shades of green for the tiny leaves

And, finally, the finished product - gorgeous, even if I say so myself :)