Work in Progress Wednesday - 2 Jan 2013

The first WIPW of the year and I have a few photos to share with you!  I resisted the temptation to include any of these on yesterday's year review posting, although it certainly was there for the 'completing current WIPs' section of the 2013 goals list.

As you can see here, I've been pressing on with the shading on the rabbit's body.  I drew in some lines in pencil on the felt and fabric and then started by putting a few key guidelines in using the darkest shade.

In this shot you can see the second darkest shade starting to make an appearance and you can also see that I took the photo in different light from the first two shots!!  It's hard, when you're stitching at different times of day and at a time of year when some whole days never seem to get fully light, to keep the lighting standard.  No matter how much editing one does, there's still a clear difference.

This last shows the third darkest colour making it's debut.  Of course, against the two very darkest, it looks rather pale!

I still have rather a long way to go with it - almost half the body is untouched and the bit that is done is not done completely - you can see the padding and backing through it, so I need to go over it in good light and stop up some gaps.

The sampler looks like this at present, with one of the long satin stitch panels done.  I haven't put in the few stitches across the bottom as I want to re-count and check that the number of stitches, (173, I think), is correct.  It will matter as this section is to be filled every so many threads with a decoration, so getting it right is definitely the best way to go.  I left it for another time as I was quite tired by the time I'd got to that point and was packing up for the night.

It looks rather pulled to one side at the moment...=(

Hope I'll have more to show off on both of these and, if some miracle happens, on the feather as well.  I'd dearly love to get that finished and OFF my desk and 'to do' list, but I can never seem to find the motivation to make it so.

Sigh!

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013