Happy Halloween. These were created by my DH and DDs at a pumpkin carving party (the birdhouse is not ours). On the left is the traumatic brain injury pumpkin, in the middle is the picking his nose with his tongue pumpkin, and on the right is the cannibal pumpkin. They were a hit in the neighbourhood. On to the stitching.
Here is Christine's sampler.
And here is Jenny's.
I've been staring at them regularly thinking about what I shall do. I'm teaching an Assisi work class on Nov. 13 and I've been having so much fun researching the history and finding patterns for the information and pattern brochure that will go with the class, so at first I was thinking only of Assisi bands, but now I'm not sure. And I was contemplating moving outside the starting colour schemes, but again, I'm not sure yet. I won't decide until after I've taught my class, but in the meantime, I've been pulling out various skeins and laying them over the samplers to decide on colours. I think that has shown me that a traditional Assisi band won't really work but an overdyed thread might. The think is, I've found this really great pomegranate pattern in an old book from my grandmother that I am dying to use, so I'll have to contemplate further.
Don't you find that contemplation is a big part of the process. I've had projects change completely during the contemplation phase, which is usually a good thing. I've thought out problems and colours and stitches and generally I'm happy with the final product. Case in point for not thinking things through is the stumpwork thistle I'm working on now which I'll add to my blog shortly but here it is for you- and I welcome comments. I picked a person for the December ornament exchange who like thistles and so I based this on the design on a scissor fob I stitched a couple of years ago. The problem is, not only have I not quite got it balanced, but this is a 5 inch hoop and I think even 4 inches is too big for an ornament. But except for the balance, I do like it so far, I just think a bud needs to be added.
So, do I keep this as a box top for myself, or as a gift, and try to stitch something smaller? Or do I try something completely different? Or do I just go for a big ornament?
BTW, as I've mentioned before, please excuse my lack of posting. I am keeping up with reading your blogs and messages, and I'm keeping up with my stitching, but my out of the house workload has increased considerably this fall. I'm actually quite excited by the work challenges and my projects have been well received professionally, but I do find it cuts into my computer time. I'm also finding that getting up every day before 6 am to get my older DD to high school before going to work means that I'm quite tired by 10 pm, so right now (10:40 pm) I'm seeing sort of fuzzy type. I've never been one to work well with less than 8 hours of sleep.
After consulting my favourite colour book and going through my favourite Hungarian pattern book I've added this row to Christine's band sampler. It seems to have the right mix of fine lines and blocks of colour to go with the rows above (or below depending on how it is used).
