Needlequest Update - 18 August 2014

Hi!  Welcome to another week and another Needlequest update and piece completed.=)  This is a rather experimental small piece, but I'm quite pleased with the finish,

First I painted the whole flower using the paints I showed you last NQ post.  I was amazed at just how pearlescent the pearl paint is, even more than the metallic, I think!

I created the colours I wanted by mixing pearl, metallic and regular fabric paints together and, although one of the greens came out a little more lurid than I'd wanted, (I should have added red earlier than I did!) I was favourably surprised at how well I'd remembered colour mixing theory!!!

The next stage was to select some colours to stitch with.  I decided to use some of my new DMC threads for two reasons: 1) I bought them and want to use them; and 2) They're easier to select from as they're still all hanging around in clear plastic bags in colour groups, so I can just pick them up and see what I want straight away, rather than mess around with the Anchor colour chart and then fishing the skeins out of the box.  Oh, yes, there's another reason for choosing DMC for this project and that is that, as several other experienced stitchers have noted, DMC shades are brighter and just that little bit shinier than Anchor ones.  One project needs one type and another project the other brand.

Here are the colours I pulled out.  I used five of them - both yellows, both pinks and the brownest green, #580.

Here are the results, the top photo showing detail and the contrasting textures and the second shot giving an overview of the whole piece.

I just need to mount it in a card blank now and get it in the post to my brother tomorrow as his anniversary is on Wednesday.=)

Something for my fellow Needlequesters to think over:

I've noticed that techniques and styles seem to attract better levels of participation than design themes do, so I'm planning on changing the topics for two of the four remaining months of the challenge.  I'm going to leave September as 'Autumn' as that's a fairly easy design theme to work with and, of course, 'Stumpwork' will stay in.  Other than that, I'm considering two from '3D Stitches', 'Hardanger' and 'Miniaturisation' for the other two months.  Any preferences?  Also, as stumpwork and 3D stitches are related, which order should it all go in if we had both of those, would you say?

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2014