Stitching Stuff

Wedding Prayer has now been (happily) received so here are the pictures.

Here it is hot off the press:

And finished and ready for posting:

I didn't end up washing it as I put the interfacing on and then decided that washing it would take out some of the stiffness and cause more wrinkles to iron out. What I should have done was used the steam iron when I ironed it before putting the interfacing on, instead I just used a dry iron. Oh well, live and learn.

I also had to put two layers of white on the back as I'd used bright green thread to edge the fabric and you could see it through one layer. Oops.

I finished this last night. But I'm not going to put any pictures of it up until it's been received, just so that they get to see it first. So this week's task is to 'finish' finish it and get it in the post.

Now I think it will be on to more bookmarks - this time for the great swimming teacher the children have had since they started swimming in their first year, and for the teachers at school, all of whom we will be leaving behind in a few months when we move to the US. Hopefully those will take no more than a week, and then I'll move on to the Owls for my mother's birthday later this year, and possibly start a scissor pouch that's been calling my name recently.

This also means that I get to shrink my WIP list by one - well at least until I start on the bookmarks - although I'm hoping those will go fast enough that they won't need to appear on the WIP list. The scissor pouch should also go quite quickly that the list wouldn't grow for too long (says she hopefully). One day I will get it back down under 5 items, which is much more how I like it. It's just a pity there are so many nice things out there that I want to start - and so many people I want to stitch things for too :).

Wheehee. I've finished the outer border. Completely and utterly, French knots and backstitch.

Now I've just got the inner border, which is hardly anything as you can see from the little bit I've started - ok in the middle of each side it gets to three stitches wide, but it's nothing really. And fill in the words and hearts in the centre.

I may even finish it by the first anniversary.

I am now half way around with the backstitching and it's actually looking quite good I think. I'm liking it more and more as I go. Except that I've almost run out of 3371 so I think a run to the shop tomorrow might be in order, but I think the only place left only sells Anchor. Oh well, I'll see what the conversion looks like.

I'm now thinking about the finishing. I know basically what I'm going to do, but I'm wondering about washing it. I think I'm going to have to put iron on interfacing on the back so the backstitch doesn't come undone, as in a few places I've had to cut just one stitch and force the ends to the back as the wonderful chart confused me and I got it wrong. I'm thinking I'll need to put the interfacing on before I wash it as otherwise those ends might make a bid for freedom. Or I could just skip the washing.

Incidentally - I've turned on comment moderation for posts over 7 days old as I recently noticed I was getting a load of spam comments, and figured that moderating older posts comments might help without being noticed too much. If the spam continues I may go to full moderation, but I'll see how it goes. So if when you're trying to comment you get a message saying it will be moderated - it's not cos I think you're going to be horrible :D The other thing I could do if it keeps up is turn on the word verification, which I personally find really annoying, hence why I haven't turned it on yet.

And the backstitch started:

It still looks really dark even with 3371 instead of 310, but I'm not unpicking it. Maybe next time (not that I'm planning a next time) I'll go for a lighter shade again.

The other thing I've noticed with the backstitch is that it's highlighting where the stitches aren't sitting flat, usually where they have slipped one way or another with the fabric weave. I think I'm going to try and avoid doing cross stitch on 22ct hardanger again.

I have finished all the cross stitching in the border for Wedding Prayer. My next task is to backstitch it all. Then I'll start on the centre. I'm going to use DMC 3371 for the backstitching as the kit has black and I think that will be too harsh given that I've shrunk the design and am only stitching with one thread.

Anyway - here's a pic of my progress so far.

This is coming on really well at the moment, which is inspiring me to work on it more - kind of circular really.

Just thought I'd share my progress on this as well.

I've decided for this I'm going to work my way around filling in the colour completely on each section, rather than taking one colour all the way around. So here's the bottom a bit closer to completion.

I've finished all the knotwork around the border, so now I get to fill in the colour which hopefully will be a bit easier as it's all in blocks, and it will really start looking good.

Slightly more on this one:

Another side of knotwork done on this.

I did a bit more on Wedding Prayer this week. It's very painful - I'm currently doing one of the colours that the symbol just looks like a blob so it's hard going. At least there is symmetry so I can check for errors in my stitching by comparing the sides as I go.

Here is the latest on Wedding Prayer. I have now finished the base of the knotwork and am up to filling in the shadow colour.

I recently did a little more work on this too, not much but every little helps.

I managed to get back to this this week as well, so here's its progress. I am now all the way around with the base of the knotwork - just got to do the inner border in that colour and then I can start on the shading colour for the knotwork, and then I'll fill in all the gaps.

First up is the Wedding Prayer. I'm still on the base knotwork. Really haven't got as far as I wanted (I wanted it to be in the post by now), but I have at least warned my friend that it is going to be late.

So long as I do keep working on it and don't conveniently forget about it then it will get done.

Here's the latest on this:

I've also been stitching O'Jerusalem, but nothing else, so I didn't manage to join in the first exchange on the exchange blog. I know I won't be doing the second either, still hopefully I'll get there soon.

I am making plans for things I want to start soon though, including the bookmarks for the nursery workers and swimming coaches that we'll be leaving when DD goes up to school in September.

I am now up to stitching the knot on the inside of the border. I started with part of the knot and then I thought I'd start some of the colour inside, but it turned out to be a bit confusing, so I'm going to do all the knot and then fill in the gaps like those scribbles where you draw round and round and then connect the ends and colour all the spaces.

The reason it got confusing is because this is one of the worst patterns I've stitched from. Here is a small sample blown up many times. The original is printed at 15½ stitches per inch (yes I measured), and as you can see blowing it up doesn't improve the clarity much at all.

I think I have now figured the symbols out - the biggest blob is supposed to be an asterix, and the upside down V is actually a triangle, but the base merges with the lines of the chart. The arrow and plus sign keep making me cross eyed too as they touch all sides of the square so I keep counting wrong as I keep counting from the symbol not the grid. So all in all you can see why it's driving me batty (well more batty than normal anyway).

Because of all of the above this is one of the few patterns that I highlight where I've been (others are generally the large ones taking many sheets, although I am slowly finding that I'm colouring more and more), and the highlighter on just the knotwork was actually making the pattern look better. But as soon as I started filling in the gaps with the highlighter it started going back to the previous chaos, just in green.

Also a progress report on this. It doesn't look like I've done much - I think the colours are going to look a bit washed out with only one strand of floss, but the stitching looks so much neater. It's taking ages on the 22ct, but it does come out the right size, so I'll plod on. I can see I'm going to struggle to get it finished in time.