Brightneedle: Ezmeralda's House
Another project started so long ago, probably not too long after the pattern came out. Working from the top down, I got most of the bedroom done before I put it away.
This past week I finished the bedroom and started on everything below it.
When I first thought about this project I did not want to do this over 1 but I still wanted it to be small scale stitching and since it was Halloween I was leaning towards something funky: thus the tiny uneven cloth 44/48. It has a beautiful dense hand to it. I hope I have some more buried in the stash somewhere.
Joane Wallwin
More work on Wallwin. Making my way across the second band.
That third band area with the snake is going to be nasty. The colors are alternating on all motifs there including that diagonal. There is no neat way to make the trip. The colors will sometimes not alternate. Also the thickness of the snakes waxes and wanes
Fortunately I am not a purist about sampler reproduction because I would not have made it past the first band where I miscounted, making the sampler wider than charted then adapted everything below. The snake band colors will alternate as they end up alternating and I am not going to compare that with what is charted other than to marvel if I just happened to match.
That's it until next week. I don't know what projects will be inprogress then. I am still poking through older wips. I would like to finish all of Part 1 of Wallwin before I put her away. I had planned on only doing the kitchen on Ez's House but I'm having enough fun to continue to the porch and her foyer so we'll see.
I behaved well last week in staying with some wips but I am really tempted by something new. Since I wasn't sure what exactly, I tried some tricks to stay with the current projects.
The first trick was working my way down to the first band of color on the Nonesuch Sampler. Excuse the threads leading off to the sides. I just wanted to work with some color. I didn't trust my ability to count correctly on the 50 ct so I started each band on my way down.
I also realized that I don't have enough eterna color 10 (ecru) to finish the all the whitework. I may not even have enough left to finish the band I started with it (below the big dull diamonds). That shows you how long ago I started this: eterna was still easily available then.
I need to go through all of my wips to see if that sort of thing will be an issue with any of them concerning their threads.
Diving into my stash I found the next closest color, which is still whiter than the ecru. I have 2 skeins of that. That should be enough. One good thing about not completing the bands all the way through - it will be easier to integrate the new, slightly different color to make it look like more of a design choice than the OH NO! *face palm* that it is.
But even that bit of blue wasn't enough to keep me interested for long. It was also too small. Those xes are really tiny. I didn't get that sense with the satin stitches over several threads in the bands above.
I wanted something I could see! It doesn't shine like the eterna colors but it is 1 strand over 2 on 36 ct which seems like canvas holes by comparison.
I took my Blackbird Designs 2011 Loose Feathers Summer back out.
We will see how much further I get. It is still not fitting the mood I am in. I wish I knew what I was looking for!
Switching gears to something different:
I don't know whether it was the color changes on the other pieces or whether it was the same colors but I need a change. I need to work on something different.
This is a piece I started too many years ago to remember.
Using 50 ct Ivory cloth w Eterna silks and some assorted others being tested for the tight gauge.
The sheen of the Eterna is incredible but I will have to be careful. I don't know what I have in my deep stash for duplicate skeins, if any or if it is still available.
Right now, I just have to make it through the whitework bands. Because I wasn't sure of how much I had I switched to a tatting thread for Band 6, the just started bigger diamond band.
The 50 count and the Eterna wore on me in past. Let's see how far I get this time before putting this one back to sleep. Hopefully, a short sleep. Maybe the WIPocalypse challenge will help me to keep it out and get some bands finished.
