Mojave by Jim Wurth – Progress 2

I’ve worked a this piece for a couple hours now and I’m over half done with it.

The herringbone stitch was done in four shades of the rusty brown. Then Kreinik metallic was added for the last two steps. Then the Palm Braid, the next stripe, was an alternate of green #8 perle and yellow Kreinik braid.

Next up is a row of Jessicas on each side. When the piece is finished, beads will be used to fill in the Jessicas. I hope to have all the stitching done next week and will post then. I don’t know if I’ll have time for all the beads though. We’ll have to see how things go. I do have to get the canvas ready for the Chinese rug too. It’s almost February and I need to have that all ready to start.

 

Elephant – Progress 4

Cross stitch projects have slowed down considerably, but I’ve still made some progress. The elephant’s face is just about done and the motif above the head has been started.

The motif above the head is about a third complete so I need to work on that first. Then I can start the ear on the right side and the motif in the top, right corner – a map of Africa. This could take a while. You probably won’t see this elephant again for a month, so we’ll see how much progress I can make by then.

Next up is completing the square with the houses on the Patchwork Rug. I want that done so I can start the Chinese rug next week. It’s getting very busy here in Northern California.

Exploring Publishing Options

I’m trying to find new ways to get information to my readers. I have several ideas that I want to try out.

1. I’ve always wanted to have PDFs available here on the blog, so I’m trying that out today. I’ve created a one page PDF of the Anatolian motif that was a Freebie here last year. I’ve made it a PDF. If you want to help me try it out, just click on the link below. It opens as a PDF and you should be able to save it to your hard drive after it opens in a separate window. Let me know if there is a problem so I can try to troubleshoot.

Anatolia

2. I don’t know programming, so I doubt I could create an App for anyone to use. BUT, Apple just released a free App for the Macs (available from the App store on your Mac) called iBook Author. I’ve downloaded it and will do some playing with that over the next few weeks. If I can get that to work, I’ll try to register with the Apple iBookstore. That would enable me to write an ebook on adapting (it’s already started) and sell it through the iBookstore. This might be another way to sell my patterns as well. Is there any interest in that? Apple says that any books created this way will be viewable on the iPhone an iPad.

3. I’ll also look into Kindle to see if I would be able to sell patterns and books through Kindle as well. I have an older Kindle, so I don’t know what the new Kindle Fire can do. I don’t think you can enlarge the pages or photos on it, so it may not be the best solution. Are you interested?

Let me know your thoughts on these methods of presenting my information and patterns. I really want to know if this is something that you, my readers, would like. If you have other ideas, I’d love to hear them as well.

Thank you all!

Mojave by Jim Wurth – Progress 1

I bought the Dodecagon series by Jim Wurth in 2008, I think. I got 5 of them done. So I still have 7 to do and I decided that I would try to complete at least 3 of them this year. They are in the database as 7 of the 25 projects that have been waiting for my attention. They are about 5″ in diameter so I should be able to get this one done quickly.

Each dodecagon starts with an outline in Smyrna Crosses.

The two lines that form the next stitching area are done in Van Dyke stitch with a touch of Kreinik metallic. There were 7 steps to completing this narrow band done in perle cotton and Kreinik metallics.

Now I’ve started the next area. The Jessicas were stitched in yellow Kreinik metallic thread. Between the Jessicas will be a large Herringbone stitch done in multiple colors.  I’ll post again next week with my progress.

Stars of the New Millennium – Finale

Surprise! We decided to push ahead and finish this project so we could start some new projects. Be sure to check Liz’s blog today as well!

The middle square in the bottom row is Ingrid Bergman. Lots of time-consuming couching around the center, but the rest went a little faster.

The last square is Gary Cooper. I really liked this square, especially the star that was stitched on top of the center. It was a good design to end the project.

Then it was on to the rest of the outer borders. This didn’t take me very long as I’ve been working on the borders as I did the individual squares.

So I was finally finished with the project and quite happy with the final version. Then…. I decided I wanted to go around the outside one more time to fill in the empty spaces along the sides, eliminating the four corner squares and making the piece a complete rectangle. I used the off-white Impressions that I had used in the design already. So here is my FINAL version. I really liked this project but I’m ready to work on something a little simpler for a little while. Let’s see what I can come up with. Thank you Tony!

Persian Iris Mandala – Progress 12

Since I’m working on a design for a new rug, cross stitch has slowed down quite a bit.

I decided to start with the mosque in the center of the top. I stitched most of the thin minarets on the outside and then stitched the lines that would divide the mosque into smaller sections that I could start to fill in.

As I begin to fill in the areas of the mosque with turquoise, teal and blue, I’ll add a few stitches at a time to the top of the thin minarets as well.

I’ve started the door of the mosque, stitching in two shades of turquoise to create the arch at the top of the door. The areas to the left and the right of the arch will be stitched over 1 thread on this 32 count linen. This will be a slow process for me, a new cross stitcher, but I’ll get it done. I think this is the only area that is stitched over 1 thread. And to show that this complicated design hasn’t discouraged me from doing more large cross stitch projects, I have another large one ready to go (much later this year) that is done completely over 1 thread on 25 ct. fabric. I love this design, especially the colors around the outside that I’ve just started.

Chinese Rug – Playing With Colors

Though I don’t have all the design elements finalized, I decided it was time to play with the colors for everything. I have a cross stitch program on my May but I know that using the little squares for a design will cause me difficulty when actually stitching. So I don’t use the cross stitch software to do actual stitch designs and instructions. But this software works well for a quick study of the colors to be used for a design. Here is a mock-up of what the borders in the design will look like.

You can see that I’ve changed some of the colors since I did the practice stitching. I decided that I wanted to use the pale gold for the background around the flowers (and the butterflies still to come) in the outer border. So I didn’t want to use the same color in the next border – Meander. I’ve changed the Meander to Navy and Natural (off-white). I’ve added a one stitch wide pale blue to separate the Meander from the Wheat Stitch border. The Wheat Stitch will be done in Navy with medium blue for the Double Cross stitches. A final border over 2 threads in pale blue will separate all the border areas from the background which will be stitched in Honey.

I like this arrangement, so I can now figure out how much Silk & Ivory to order to stitch the rug. For example, the Gobelin stitch border over 2 threads that forms the first border will take a little more than one skein of thread to go around the entire rug. The center background takes about 9 skeins so I’ll order a half hank of Honey (that just over 10 skeins). That gives me a little extra, just in case. Now that I know what color each of the elements will be, I can estimate how much of each color to order this week. This is just guess work and I always order ore than I think I’ll need since I don’t want to run out of any colors while stitching the rug. I always make a list of all the threads before I start, so I can get an accurate count at the end of a project.

I haven’t shown you all the elements because I want there to be a few surprises along the way, but butterflies and leaves will join the design around the outside. I’m still playing with butterflies, but I hope to have everything ready to go on February 1st. Are you as excited as I am to get working on this?

Stars of the New Millennium – Humphrey Bogart

Starting the last row of this piece, we have Humphrey Bogart. I forgot to take a photo when the center was complete, so here is the square all stitched up. I really love the two green sets of stitches in the center of all the sides. It gives the impressions of rounded corners for the light rust showing through.

Only two more squares to go (and the rest of the borders of course). We’re getting close now.

Check out Liz’s version today too. The contrast between the two versions is amazing. Hers seems so soft compared to mine.

Getting Organized and Patti Mann #2 – Progress 4

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. Never have. But I’ve decided that 2012 is the year to get organized and get old projects done and new pieces designed and stitched. Yesterday I went up to my needlepoint room and took the 4 tote bags off the back of the grid wall and went through everything. I made a list of projects that have been started and not finished, designs that I want to create and have threads pulled already, and anything else I could find. Then I pulled the small box over that contains all the charts I have that I have not started. Some of these are small kits.

Back downstairs to the computer. I have a Mac laptop and Bento – an easy to use database program where I’m trying to keep track of all things needlepoint. I entered everything I found in the needlepoint room, one at a time. For about half of them I could only list that I had the chart and nothing else. Some I entered how much was completed, etc. Then I sorted the database by Completed Date. I can easily see everything I’ve completed in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Those that are not done have a blank space in this column and they all sort to the top of the display. There are 25 of them!! I’ve been working a lot on cross stitch lately, and really want to do some needlepoint for a while now. I brought down a WIP and one of the Jim Wurth Dodecagon ornaments that hasn’t been started. That should get me started.

Then I created a second database where I’ve listed ideas for new needlepoint designs. I wrote quick descriptions for each and if I already had all the threads or not. There are 10 entries in this database so far. Guess I’ll be busy this year!

I’ve been picking up the Patti Mann canvas a few evenings a week and working on it. I’m close to the halfway point now. Here’s how it looks today.

Chinese Rug – Practicing Motifs

I don’t usually post about this step of the process, but I’m going into more detail on the design process with this project, so here we go.

I started with background stitches. I don’t want to use the same stitch each time, so I’ve tried out several different stitches that I thought might work.

I always keep a small bag by my chair in the living room, where I normally stitch. This bag has some Silk & Ivory, floss, etc. When I want to practice ideas for a new project, I pull out whatever thread I’ll be using for the project – color doesn’t matter at this point. So I pulled out Natural Silk & Ivory for this project. I started at the left with Oriental stitch – I like this stitch but wondered if it would create too much of a pattern for the background and take away from the other design elements. Just to the right of that is Caswell stitch – I think doing this over and over for a large area would drive me crazy, so it was eliminated. Just to the right of that is Diagonal Double Parisian – the stitches were just too small to repeat over and over so I stitched another version using longer stitches. This is okay but will definitely create lines across the rug – eliminated. Above these stitches, and still in Natural color, is Double Trellis – I liked this stitch but wasn’t sure about the canvas peaking through, so I stitched it a second time using Honey, which I will be using as the background color for the actual rug. I don’t like the holes in the canvas showing through for a rug – eliminated. Now to the other stitches done in Honey. On the top, left is Milanese – I like it and will consider it. At the bottom, right is Giant Diagonal Mosaic – don’t like it at all – eliminated. The next stitch on the top row is Giant Brick stitch – like this one a lot and will be easy to compensate around the design. The last stitch on the right is Diagonal Weave (or Woven) stitch – it’s okay and moves along fairly well, but I’ve eliminated it as well. So I’m down to Milanese and Giant Brick. At this point I think I’ll use the Giant Brick but we’ll see.

This is the photo collage that I showed you before with ideas from 3 different rugs that I thought would work for the borders around the outside of the rug. I knew I wanted to do the Meander border, so I did a small section that included a corner to see how much space it would take up and how it would look.

This motif will be stitched in Gobelin over 2 threads. I’ll stitch the bottom half of the Navy over 2 threads as well. (Yes, one strand of the motif on the right is the wrong color.) I need to made the pointed corners a little neater. That’s one reason I always practice stitch the element first, finding the problem areas and hopefully getting them solved before I start on the project. I said in an earlier post that the small motif above the Meander motif in the collage photo would be different in my version. The small blue and white motif in the photo above is what I will use as the motif above the Meander. The colors aren’t what I will use though – still have to decide what colors to use where. The Wheat stitch is in blue and the Double Cross stitch is in white – for the second cross stitch, I used a Long Arm Cross so it would fill in the area between the Wheat completely.

This is my first attempt at the flower from the photo collage. I used 2 different shades of blue, but I’m not sure there is enough difference in color. I may need a slightly darker shade – another reason to practice stitching first before I order my threads. I have an idea on how to improve the flower, but I’ll keep it as a surprise when I start the rug. I don’t want to give everything away before I even start.

What’s left? I need some scrollwork to place between the flowers and I need 2 versions of butterflies – one for the corners of the border and one for the center medallion. Let’s see if I can get that done this week and do a rough layout. Then I can think about how much of each color I’ll need and place an order in about 2 weeks. I hope to be able to start the real stitching around February 1st.