My Two-Cents' Worth, Finally!

Everyone is posting pix of their work "outside" our RR, so here goes some of mine!

Since putting the birds on Norma's sampler, I have become fascinated with that particular stitch. Jenny's specializing in Drawn work, I'm leaning more and more towards Pulled-Thread work. So following is my next effort, to be appliqued onto a 12" sq. quiltlet which will be entered in the Breaking Traditions 2008 Exhibit.

I've posted in more detail on my other blogs, Ever Embellished and Tumbleweed Designs. In a few days, I'll post a pic of the whole thing. With this particular exhibition, we are allowed to present pictures prior to the exhibition date. I'm quite excited about this chance and look forward to getting this piece done and sent off shortly!

humph

I'm obscure??????????!!!

Sarah's Band Sampler

I have finally finished my band for Sarah. I must admit that this one was a little harder to think of than the previous ones I have worked on, but I think it fits in with the theme.

In the package for this sampler was a little book with a card as a cover. On this card is a wonderful picture of a Chinese Emperor standing in a garden in front of a building. So I decided to use this card as the inspiration for my band. On the Emperor's robe is border featuring a key pattern, so I took this key, mirrored it horizontally, then again vertically, to achieve my pattern.

I found single crossed eyelets ( a stitch I had not done before) in a pulled work book and I felt that this would work beautifully on the fabric supplied. At first I graphed it so the key pattern was 3 squares wide. I wanted to use the eyelets in a checkerboard effect, but when I started to graph it out, the design was too wide for the sampler. So then I graphed it only one square wide, so each square would be an eyelet.

The eyelets were worked in 2 strands of DMC stranded thread, & when finished it looked a little bland. I needed to add another colour to give it a lift. I tried to outline the key shape, but as it was 5 threads wide, backstitching over 2 threads did not work mathamateically. I tried over 1 thread & also over 5 threads, both of which did not look good either. So in the end I worked tiny cross stitches over the single cross in the center of each eyelet.