Melitastitches4fun's Blog

I’m glad I had time to get back to Spirit of Jean by Kathy Rees and finished in time to send for a critique! I used some threads from Mae, a past member of my ANG Main Line chapter;  thus, the name, Spirit of Jean and Mae.

I expected both sides of the dagger Amadeus to have the threads line up and match. But, I am thrilled that the brown matched in the middle because the dagger is created by stitching the top half and then the bottom half up to meet the top half. I left the top one partially stitched and you can see the finished one on the bottom.

After I got started on the background,  I realized I would run out of the thread which I then found out had been discontinued. So, I headed to Nimble Needle where Karen had more WDW straw (which surrounded the center waffle) and a different Thread Gatherer Silk to choose from. Both would have worked but Karen reminded me WDW is cotton & I had started with a silk which has a better shine to it. So, I evened up the 2 sides instead of ripping out & finished with the new silk.

The threads I used were:

Kreinik 080C, 031

Weeks Dye Works (WDW) Straw 1121 but The Thread Gatherer Silk ‘N Colors Toasted Marshmallow SNC255 or Shepherd’s Moon SNC097 was used when I ran out of WDW 1121.

WDW Bright Leaf 1227, 1333

Waterlilies Umbria 204

ThreadworX 130

Watercolours Raspberry Sherbet

Gloriana Fall Foliage 077

Neon Rays N26

The ANG CyberPointers chapter voted to offer Spirit of Jean by Kathy Rees, a current Correspondence Course, to our members & I signed up! Recently, I obtained some great stash from Mae V-D, a past member of my local chapter, Main Line Stitchers, who passed away.  So, the basis of the colorway came from her threads. Plus, Mae is my middle name & my grandmother’s name!

You can see in the upper left side of the photo the Watercolours tag that has the color and lot number handwritten – now that’s old! And, I’m not sure what the overdyed floss is on the far left but it goes with the Watercolours perfectly. It is amazing that all the threads are over-dyes and makes it more challenging to select threads. 

I met Ginny, another CP and member of my other local Keystone chapter who signed up too, at Fireside Stitchery the weekend that the instructions arrived in the mail (thanks Candy for all your work) to select our threads. But, I used some Weeks Dye Works with very little variation to get what I wanted.  I was thinking how much easier it would have been to select the optional kit but I love these colors.  It’s been very fun stitching although it requires very careful counting!!