Halloween Plaid

If you go visit the Embroiderers' Guild of America website and look under resources, you'll find some free projects. They are introducing a new one every month. Try this url:  https://www.egausa.org/index.php/resources/free-projects

This month it is a Halloween Plaid design by Mary Waldsmith of Owl Stitchery.

The photos show my plaid in progress and completed. I used 18ct canvas and four colors of pearl cotton. Now I need to make it into a spider.

It is a Halloween plaid because the count is 5 + 5 = 10 then 3, 1. 

Hot off the Needles

This one has been hanging around nearly finished for about 4 or 5 years. There are 3 squares that are supposed to have buttons. And I'm not a huge button fan.

So I decided to use some beads and the witch's  hat got stitched. The other two squares were designed, gravestone and moon with bats, but I never got around to stitching the bats. I ditched the idea of beading the bats and just stitched that square. Phew.

This a design by Marilyn Owen and its in the ANG Chapter Project Book. The only way to get this is as a Chapter project (unless you find a used copy from someone.)

I'm holding on to my copy because I want to use bits of this piece again.

Rookie Mistakes

Back in 2010 (was it that long ago?) DH and I took a trip to London. When I came home, I found this canvas which I just had to have as these signs are all over their version of the subway. I like the ambiguity of this saying. It could be refering to anything, not just the literal gap between the car and the station platform.

Now I wasn't doing a lot a painted canvas at the time and I acquired threads. I stitched the red and blue and the white inside the circle and started the white up in the corner and made my first rookie mistake. 

That's right. I didn't purchase enough of my background thread. We see this mistake all the time at the shop. Not enough background thread. Best case scenario, you held on to your tags. Now we have a sporting chance of matching dye lots.  

Worst case scenario, and here's where I made my second rookie mistake, my threads got separated from my canvas. No idea how this happened. I am usually so careful about this. 

I thought I had been using Pepper Pot and I had an older skein of Cloud which is their white. In retrospect, maybe it was Vineyard I was using. As I can see a difference between the upper right corner and a couple inches in. And then came the second difference between Pepper Pot Cloud then and Pepper Pot Cloud now. That's where the arrow is. 

I'm not going to let this bother me. When it's made into a pillow and your sitting across the room from it, you will only see white. Not three different whites. 

Now that I'm no longer a rookie, but seasoned pro at painted canvas, I never make mistakes. LOL

Bargello

Every time I add a color, the look completely changes. After the four shades of blue, comes raspberry pink.

And then, I'll do all over again 7 or 8 more times.

Reset

I need help. An intervention. I can't resist a new project.

It's bad, you know.

In the past two weeks I started two new projects, both from guild classes. Bought another one. And am ordering two more.

But. I. Can't. Stop.

Here's one of my new projects. We've been discussing this one for a while in our program committee meetings. Finally got it off the ground. It's a gentlemen's pocketbook. Our program chairs each stitched one. One on linen and one on congress cloth. We used the article from Piecework magazine (what issue and year, I don't remember) as our starting point.

I picked a light blue congress cloth from my stash and bought some Impressions which is a wool/silk blend. My bargello pattern is from Erica Wilson's bargello book and she called it Aurora Borealis. I've got four color families in four shades each. Easy to do after I set my first row.

This will take a while as it's 21 inches long. And each shade covers 1/6th of an inch. Glad it's only 6 1/2 inches wide.

That's the scoop on one new project. But I still need an intervention.