Roses, roses

Glad to see so many enjoyed the tutorial last week and welcome to 15 new subscribers, many of whom are Portuguese speaking - bemvenidos.=)

Today I have updates on the Ring of Roses hardanger design and, coincidentally with so many new Brazilian readers, my first go at a rolled rose in Brazilian threads etc.

First the scatter cushion cover after the third and then the fourth day's stitching.

It's coming along very well and I'm pleased with it, although I had to re-do some of the leaves as I'd got them way out.  I decided that one space out in one direction was OK for the coloured motifs as they won't have threads cut, but one set of leaves was three out in both directions!  One of the roses is slightly out too, but it doesn't show and so I decided to leave it as it is.  I haven't been able to stitch on it since about Saturday as I was working away the other day and only took a small piece with me, so I hope to get chance to do some of the stems today.

Here is said small piece, I finally managed to get some bullions in the Brazilian Rolled Rose piece, which I'd like to get completely finished in the next 2 weeks or so.

This is worked with Edmar rayon thread and it's very tricky.  The texture and how slippy it is I can cope with  OK, but the fact that it twists against itself so much whilst you're doing the wraps for the bullion knots is really hard to deal with.  You get one or two knots worked, and then the thread just goes mad and a knot completely fails.  Also, the rose seems to me to be a good deal bigger than it appears on the kit photo.  I'm wondering if I'm going to manage to get it all as tightly packed together as the style demands.

Anyway, the plan is to try and work a flower or so each day before getting on with the hardanger and see it slowly grow.  I can deal with a few stops and starts each time without getting too upset with it, but more than that would drive me mad.  Not sure I'll be keeping and working the larger Brazilian kit I own....

Oh gosh, yes, and it's blogoversary today, which means I'll be making some changes to the appearance of things.  Last week I expanded the Pages and filled in the missing captions, so there's more to see there now. I split up the 'Counted Thread' page into 'Counted and Drawn Thread', 'Hardanger' and 'Cross Stitch Favourites'.  Later on today I'll be changing a couple of colours and re-doing the header photos, so stay tuned for some small updates.

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012