Remember last week, when we discussed the angle of viewing this wool embroidery sample, where I’m playing with tambour embroidery in wool, along with a few other stitches?
Well, I fixed the long & short stitch filling on that little paisley shape in the center, and I thought you’d want to see it. And as things like this always go, once I fixed that, I started in, ripping out another section, too.
Don’t worry. Eventually I’ll get it.
This is the fix on that center area. Basically, I eliminated the darkest part in the orangey yellow.
Here’s the original, so you can see the difference:
I like the fix better, personally, but what do you think?
The fix isn’t as “fiery”, but it seems easier on the eyes to me.
Working in long & short stitch with three colors of yellow, I started at the broader part of the drip – er, the paisley (I keep calling it a drip! so derogatory to the poor thing!) – and worked the lightest yellow, and progressed through the three shades to the darkest at the tip.
If you’re wondering about long & short stitch and how to accomplish this kind of shading, you can check out my long & short stitch sampler, where I go step-by-step through shading various shapes using long & short stitch.
The nice thing about working with wool is that it’s a bit heavier than single strands of cotton or silk, so the shape fills up a lot faster!
While I was about that fix, I ended up taking out the darker blue section to the top left of the drip…
…and I replaced it with a red-orange. That’s done in long split stitch right now, since it is supposed to be padding.
But guess what? I already don’t like it. Not the color, though – just the placement and the stitch idea that I had for that space.
This piece really isn’t so much about “perfect color choices.” It’s a sampler to blend a few techniques together, using wool thread. I picked a pretty simple color palette in bright colors because I wanted to work with bright colors. In general, bright colors photograph better. Also, it’s winter, and bright colors are nice change to the bleak winter weather and landscape!
So there we are, with the first noticeable fix. I probably won’t get back to this piece until much later this week, or maybe not even until after Christmas.
I’m shooting for a Christmas finish on the Mission Rose, and I’m just over halfway done with the outer frame on that. So it will definitely occupy my stitching moments in the next several days!
Your Input on Needlework Topics
Yesterday, I begged your input on needlework topics for Needle ‘n Thread in 2014, and wow! You really came through! Thanks so much for your comments, ideas, suggestions! There are many of them, and I’ve been working through them, making lists, and categorizing them.
If you haven’t added your voice to the general dialogue, feel free to stop by yesterday’s blog post – you can enjoy meandering through the comments at the end of the post, and perhaps add your own ideas for future needlework topics on Needle ‘n Thread.
