Every Monday, I’ll feature what I worked on for the past week (Monday to Sunday) to get the bit-by-bit progress shots on my pieces that I honestly think are fascinating. Sometimes those photos are the only proof to myself that I am making progress and that every single stitch counts. This week I’m adding in a extra day since January started on a Sunday.
I’ll kick things off with the annual New Year’s Day start. This year I chose The River by Modern Folk Embroidery. I received this pattern last year in the Christmas season advent box, “The Nice Box” from the Black Needle Society along with the gorgeous hank of overdyed floss I’m using. The model was stitched in red, but oh the floss I got… it’s called River of Life, and it’s nearly identical to one of my favorite fountain pen inks called River of Fire – a mix of jewel-toned jade greens into blues that just… *swoon*. Seriously. I need ALL of this floss. All the time. Give me a giant cone of it so I can do every Long Dog that exists in it.
Anyway – this is my second Modern Folk Embroidery piece in progress. I love his designing – the Quaker and Dutch motifs he uses, sometimes with just a bit of tweaking to make it obvious they’re not pure reproductions but inspirations. (Hey… his Designer Name is exactly what he does!)
The hardest thing for me was deciding the fabric – did I want to go on dark fabric and let the floss glow, or lighter fabric so I could see it easier? Both effects would be awesome. I decided to go with the lighter fabric, though. I had a perfect color in my stash that was neutral and would let the floss shine – and ultimately, that’s what needs to happen here – the floss color absolutely needs to shine.
I’ve only put a couple hours’ work into this so far. As you can see in the photo – it’s not much. A little bit of the top border for fabric placement, and the beginning of the Alpha. I am going to be doing a modified parking method with my floss on the borders so I don’t screw up my counts. I also want to allow the floss color changes to roll through the piece naturally, so keeping each strand going to the end is ideal. It’ll be practice in color control to keep the pattern moving nicely down the line!
The next piece I worked on was for week one of “Choose My WIP” over on Semi Sane Stitchers. This game is held four months out of the year (Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct), and has four rounds per month. A couple days before the start of each official stitching week, participants post two or three projects, and all of the other active participants can vote which piece they prefer – the piece with the most votes is the one you must put at least 500 stitches in during the weekly challenge. My winner for week one was Hyperborea by Owl Forest Embroidery.
I hoped to get the entire Owl done, but I had a bit more difficulty counting that wing than I’d expected. Still – I managed to get about 600 stitches in over three days and called it a success. I do have a miscount on the head – I forgot an entire row of stitches. BUT… it’s not going to affect anything else around it. Easy to adjust for, so I’m leaving the error. Part of the reason I’m a bit hesitant to rip is because this was a fully kitted project – from Russia. So I don’t want to be scraping for the floss at the end if I’m running low. If, at the end of the project, I feel like correcting it and have the supplies… fine. But it honestly isn’t a big deal here.
The final piece I worked on this week is my Week One WIPGO piece, The Colonial Sampler. My starting photo is in that post, so no need to rehash it. This one really doesn’t photograph easily due to the fabric color, so I’m going to leave the photo a bit bigger so you can see the detail better.
I completed all of the Band #11, which included cross stitches, satin stitches, and Smyrna crosses. I also completed Band #12, which is the tiny row of light yellow Greek Cross directly below it. It was a very satisfying couple of days to know that I made specific progress by finishing full bands!
And that was my first week of the year. Stay tuned for more updates next week!