On Friday, Kristen and I made a road trip to Edwardian Needle and joined the large turnout who shop, stitch, and gab all afternoon. Very nice time – the whole weekend was great. Kristen is easy to travel with. My purchases will be the subject of a couple of upcoming posts.
On Saturday, we joined the ANG Central Jersey Chapter (CJC) for their meeting/Stitch-in. They are getting started on Crescent Journey and I displayed them as a group again. It’s fun to discus how different each design turned out because of the differences in colors and values. I saw the start of 4 of the 5 colorways and a fifth that incorporates blue instead of black with neutrals.
The chapter will also be stitching my Festive Fireworks published in the July/Aug 2017 issue of Needle Pointers. So I took that along again for them to see and talked about the project briefly.
Since CJC hosted the Autumn 3-Ways Workshop with Toni Gerdes, I took it along for my Saturday stitching project. Before I left for the weekend, I had stitched the veins and stems on the leaves. And I almost finished the 5th border, another padded long-armed cross stitch (that was also the stitch for the first border) during the Stitch-in. I did get that done Saturday night and the beads went onto the 4th border on Sunday after I got home. The beads are Delica Beads Size 15. According to the instructions, it looked like they were intended to be stitched horizontally between the motifs but I stitched them vertically because the beads are tubular and fit in the space so much better in that orientation. And, my compensation in the corner did not leave room for a bead but that’s ok.
I’m finally getting back to Circles: Theme & Variations by Lois Kershner, the ANG 2008 Stitch of the Month. A few of my ANG Main Line Stitchers chapter members are stitching this too. I expanded the diameter to about 8″ to use as a cover for the white wicker basket I made a few weeks ago.
The next pattern tackled was the 2 Round Bargello units seen on the right. I used 5 strands of the second to lightest of 5 shades of blue from the package Chameleon, Shades of Africa, Two Oceans. I repeated the Smyrna Cross Eyelet Combination used in the Circular Buttonhole. I also used the white ThreadworX again although I removed one ply so it wouldn’t be too overwhelming. There will be lots more of the Round Bargellos.
I did use a slightly lighter blue marker for the upper sections before working from the darkest Round Bargellos up towards the lightest ones. Working them in all one color is easier than switching colors but it makes a nice effect.
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