The last stitch

The last stitch went into the needlepoint project on Thursday; it is done!

I'm glad I decided to jump into it again, back in January. To be honest, there was a hint of possibility that I would tire and decide to put it away again, but once it got started I was into it. Many hours were spent re-viewing several old Britcom series that I especially enjoy. The experiment of hanging the frame from the ceiling, although a good idea and exciting, didn't pan out over time because the sofa was too low. Having sat for too long a while with my knees almost higher than my pelvis was taking it's toll.

It was fun meeting the challenge of coming up with yarn matches when the supply started running out and I was yet unsure how much I wanted to order. In the end, I ordered all the dark green for the thin border all around the tapestry, At 162 strands (36" long) that made up the bulk of my order. The remaining 70 strands consisted of a few different shades of green, a bit of burgandy, a bit of gold, and a bit of yellow.

My stitches improved during the course of working on this project. Stitching with a doubled yarn has a few challenges that single threads don't. Keeping the two threads lying nicely needs constant attention. It doesn't look good when one thread is directly on top of the other in the stitch. But one nice thing about doubled thread is that the thread never pulls out of the needle because the thread is looped. The pillow that I'm working on now is single thread and when the working thread becomes shorter than four or five inches, it has a tendency to get pulled out of the eye of the needle.

On the next sunny spell lasting at least a few days I will soak it and block it. I want to sew a backing onto it before hanging on the wall.

Revisiting the irises

The yarn on order arrived this week. I've finished stitching the main pattern and I'm now working on the outside border. It's goes pretty quickly and I expect to be finished sometime in the coming week.

Scrolling back the tapestry on it's frame, to access the borders, I've come across the Irises that I "made work" a while back due to the pale yellow yarn having run out. Although happy enough with the choice to use a gold-ish color to stitch the shadow areas of that Iris, I have not been thoroughly pleased with the out come; I thought it looked a bit 'messy'. The contrast was too stark and obvious, in my opinion, and not in keeping with the Medieval look and feel of the pattern.

When I placed the order for extra yarn, the Iris had been out of mind for a while and it did not occur to me to order a few threads of the pale yellow. Never mind. But as I pondered the situation this morning, I decided to have another look at my stash of yarns. I had found some light gold tapestry wool at the thrift shop a month or so ago, and as is my habit, took it home for my stash. On closer inspection, this color would seem to work better than the darker gold I used.

So I tore out the gold. Finished needlepoint does not frog easily, let's just say that. It takes patience and great care and attention not to cut into, or dislodge any stitches that are to remain. But I got the gold removed and stitched in the lighter yarn.

Oh, I think the result is a huge improvement and now I'm happy in a settled way. The difference between the pale yellow and the pale gold is very slight, almost unnoticeable. So much better. Mind you, I would have been fine keeping my original 'make do' had an alternative not been available. Glad I took the time to revisit this Iris.

The original "make it work" solution (I can see from the date of the picture, this was March 17th!):

How it looks now with the lighter, closer, match:

Yarn on order

The tapestry is at a standstill until the yarn I ordered last week, arrives. I hope it will be here any day now. In the meantime, it stands propped against a cabinet.

So I'm tackling another needlepoint which was started a few years ago. As you can see, it has a lot in common with the large tapestry. Same designer (Candace Bahouth), same colors, same flowers, and a similar border (although totally abstract). The design is called "Meadow Garden" and it will be a pillow. The scale of it is quite different, obviously. It is worked in a single yarn at 10 stitches to the inch.

The spring weather here has completely collapsed. We've had rain for almost a week and that is to continue through tomorrow. I noticed this morning that we have another 3 days of rain forecast for next week. The rain is good but it has created challenges for getting the yard cleaned up and the garden in order. It's also been quite cool. So much so that I haven't started any seeds indoors yet; it's just not warm enough. I may have to bite the bullet and buy nursery plants this year because soon it will be too late to start tomatoes and what not.

Lots of ticks this year so far and yesterday was officially the beginning of black fly season. The black flies will mostly disappear in a few weeks and the tick situation usually abates somewhat after the initial spring fling.

Wild flowers are making a show though. This week saw the Trillium and Violets and Wild Phlox make an appearance. The Rhododendron is blossoming now. It looks like we're at least a few weeks out from having Lilacs.