Band RR - Celtic design

I have just completed the next section of Christine's Band. This will be sent on to the next member of the group in the morning.

It was really difficult to know how best to continue the Band RR. Margaret's gorgeous orange 8 star design, Jenny's amazing open-work design and the intricacy of Christine's original work each being a very difficult act to follow.

The one thing that I focussed on was Christine's liking for stylised plants. After this, I had a very lucky find. I found myself in a Charity shop. Not unusual for me - since I often go into Charity shops to donate items, or just to browse. This time I found this wonderful book:

The book is full of the most wonderful illustrations - photographs and page border designs. I found it to be full of inspiration , with so many textures as well as images.

I chose this photograph:

The eventual design was based around the 12th century stone-carved doorway. I let myself play around with colours using the palette set by the Band RR itself. The completed design changed a little from the original sketch, most notably in the use of colour.

Counted Thread Band Round Robin - Christine's band

8 stitchers from around the world are participating in a Counted Thread Band Round Robin which was started as part of a now-defunct group, and here we plan to share the experience with those folk who were following us on that group and others who may be interested.

Here is my band with 2 rows of stitching completed, my own and Jenny B's. My multicoloured band is Wessex Stitchery, a style developed by a Mrs Foster in Bath, U.K. in the late 1800's. I'm a great fan of traditional, antique and vintage styles of needlework. New Zealander Gay Eaton published a lovely book titled "Wessex Stitchery" in 2001 and the patterns are adapted from that book. I choose my favourite colours at the moment, purple of course, and some colours to go with that which just pleased my eye. The fabric is 25 count Lugana evenweave linen, and my threads are stranded DMC cottons.

Jenny's band is withdrawn thread work using a perle thread which she had in her stash, although at the time she did comment that she felt it needed some orange but didn't have anything suitable to hand. I heartily agree, and hopefully someone else during the rotation will choose to add it somewhere.