Some neck

I filled in more French knots under his ear and then moved over under his mouth and filled in lots more there.  I also put in the diagonal stitches above his head to the right as well as another row above his nose.  One can only do just so many French knots before striking out to do a little something else, right?

Knot some more

It is time to get Otto back into the rotation as well.  I worked six strand French knots under his ear tonite and then a few down by his chin.  I want to try and get this done for a Christmas present, so I need to get crackin' on this guy!  The rest of his head and down his neck are to be all French knots.  The white needs to be stitched and a few more rows of the diagonal pattern need to be worked.....oh, and the hairs on his chinny chin chin.

Over the top

Tonight I worked the Double Stitch over the top of the heart and over to the side under the right side of the bow.  Two strands of Waterlilies fill in most of the background with an occasional white peek of the canvas, but not often.  If you look closely, you can see the hearts that I have outlined, two white that are stitched and one that is not.  Again I am going to "save" working on them until I have all the blue filled in on this section of the package.

Project two

This is project two back on the rotation schedule.  Sharon G's Gifts of Love.  I started this a while back and you can look back on the right side column Gifts of Love Bow if you would like.  I resumed working the Double Stitch under the bow on the right side.  I am using two strands of Waterlilies Ice to create the background around all the hearts.  I still need to fill several of them in but am going to do a lot of the back ground on this side before filling those in, I think!

Poppy Bud

 Yippee!  I got to stitch tonight!  We have had out of town visitors and so we have been sight seeing and shopping and eating in the warm fall weather while enjoying the changing leaves!  But, now we are back to our routine.  I finished filling in the bud at the top of the first flower tonight.  This is all being worked in long and short stitches using single strands of Splendor.  Below is a photo showing the placement in the over all design.  Also a reminder that this design is by Pat Van Cleve.

A better photo

I took this to my friend that is teaching me about my Nikon and this is the photo that he took of Lacquered Leaves.  Much better photo for you!  And, thanks to all of you who enjoyed the progress of  this piece.  It was a very different one to work, and is very dramatic!

Oriental poppy returns

Time to get back to rotations and I started with the Oriental Poppies  piece tonight.  I am working on the top bud although the instructions say to work the large flower below the center one.  You know how I am about working from the top down to keep my hands off of stitched areas.  Anyway, this is being worked with a single strand of Splendor in the long and short stitches.  I first did the top outside petal and the bottom one as well, as they are outside the main petal.  On the main petal you can see I have just started covering the outline stitch that was worked all the way around the bud.  I have started the edge with the darkest red and will be filling in the rest of the petal on the next visit.

Lacquered Leaves is finished.

Tonight I worked the final pattern on the Lacquered Leaves!  A single strand of Lacquered Jewels was run on the rows alternating with the ones covered by the four stitch pattern. This went fairly quickly.  So first, is a closeup so you can see the pattern....


And then, the final piece.  I wish you could all see this in person as I am not the photographer that can present this in the best advantage.  It is much prettier than these pictures depict.

Faster than a snail

I am stitching on the Lacquered leaves.  Just slowly.  There is a lot going on so I only get in about an hour an a half of stitching a day lately and that makes for slow progress.  I actually finished the four stitches over the four stitches tonight and took a picture.  When I got upstairs and tried to edit it, the computer says it is crap and won't do anything but show me a gray page with a lightning bolt through it.  Stop laughing, it is not funny....okay yes it is, but I am not going back downstairs again today.  I have made all the trips up and down those stairs today that I am going to!  There will be a picture sometime tomorrow--promise!  Not only that, it is my intent to finish it on Sunday.  Notice I said it is my intent....not that it will happen.....just being realistic!  LOL

Progress

 This is an overall picture so you can see what I did first.  I used a single strand of Lacquered Jewels and worked from the outside edge to the leaves in groups of four strands.  It does not look like much but I certainly used a lot of fiber creating the sets of four.  Notice how the strands were angled at the edges of all the leaves and the center not filled in between the leaves.

Then I started with another strand of thread and am making sets of four strands over every other grouping of four and creating a new pattern on top of the single strands.  Note that the patterns stop short of the leaf edges at least a half an inch.

Second border

Tonight I added the second border--it is only a partial one....you are not losing your sight....in the top left corner.  It is done with a single strand of Kreinik 8 in gold.  It is going to offset what I will be doing on the right side!

All the way around

 Yippee!  I got to stitch tonight!  I finished the outside border all the way around!  This is the start of setting these off and only a bit more to do and this will be done.

Some progress

I worked on the outside single row border and am now half way around.  I had hoped to work on this yesterday and get all the way around the outside so I can move on, but that did not happen.  Instead we spent some more time helping our friend go through more stitching things.  She is leaving this Friday and I am not sure what I will do about this piece for her, but I plan on finishing it and will go from there.

Moving on

I finished basting the perimeter of the design and then started a single half cross stitch outside of the basting.  I need to do this on all four sides to create the first part of the border.