Finished the Goldwork, plus other updates

I can't believe it's really been over a week since the last posting, but it has! I've had the worst head cold I'd ever experienced this week. My throat was that bad when I woke up on Tuesday morning that I actually thought I had tonsillitis! Anyway, it's 'just' been a bad head cold, but not fun. I haven't done a lot of stitching, but here's the goldwork dragonfly completed and a photo 'across' the piece, which seems to show the glittery aspect of it up better. I quite understand why Pierrette felt her goldwork photos didn't do her lovely work credit recently, it is SO hard to get the shimmer to show. On this piece, I also have the coloured part done in very shiny rayons, so it really has lost a lot in translation, so to speak.


I've been working on getting the 'Child of Spring' piece sewn up into a cushion/pillow cover, but am not too happy with it. I've only actually sewn the top and bottom red pieces on. DH thinks the red is too near to the pattern and that there's not enough border, but having already unpicked it once, I'm not keen on having to do it all again, so I'm thinking about adding some small white motifs around the edge of the red near the pattern, or stitching on some other sort of white border. What say you, ladies?

This is the current status on the 'Bluetits and Seedheads' cross stitch. Haven't touched it for weeks, but there was more to show than the last picture.

Thanks to Chiasmata and Pierrette (links on left hand side to both their blogs) for my 3rd and 4th 'You Make My Day' awards, and today is the deadline for submissions for the Hobbycraft Big Arts and Crafts challenge that I entered 'Branches' for. When the Hobbycraft judges have picked the final 20 per age category, (kids, teenagers and adults), then the public voting will open on 2 March. If I've made it that far, I will post the link as promised and hope to get one of the 3 prizes!=) Not that I need any more art and craft supplies, but winning would be lovely.=)

Slow progress

Haven't done much more on the dragon/damselfly yet as I wasn't up to sitting up stitching much yesterday, but managed a little on the forewings as well as 2 legs and antennae. You can't really see the marks for the rest of the wings on this shot, but this isn't the finished story!!

I liked Doris's comment yesterday about when she only has one large project on the go, she gets bored with and neglects it. That answered why I wasn't getting on with the bluetits and why I've had repeated problems with that sort of feeling in the past. Yes, variety is needed and so, whilst finishing the brids trio (of which bluetits is only the 2nd piece), I intend to do as many small pieces as I can without totally neglecting the main items!!

Another quickie

Started stitching a 'goldwork' damselfly that I've been wanting to do for years - since I first saw <-this picture of the project in the Anchor Beginners' Guide to Freestyle Embroidery book. As you can see from my WIP photo, I've cut the design down to half as, pretty as it is, all the couching is a little dull and it's easier to use as a small design (can be mounted in a card no probs) than a larger one, which might need framing. £$£$£$£$£!! I've also made some colour changes. The book says that the fabric is deep blue silk, but this photo looks more like it's purple to me (if you saw the book proper, it's even more 'red' there!) so I fished out a very vibrant royal blue colour silk to work on, backed with dark Vilene, as ever! I also change the colours of the threads for the bodies from the blue and green cotton in the book to 2 shades of turquoise with black for the eyes of Anchor Marlitt (rayon) to increase the glimmer effect of the whole thing. Here it is so far and, if you look carefully, you can see the outline of the wings. I did this bit in about an hour and a half last night.

Oh, how I am enjoying quick projects at the mo, but after this, I must get that cushion/pillow cover made up for baby sis and then get back on with the bluetits cross stitch. I think that the latter is, frankly, boring me!! Still, I can do a bit on that and a bit on something else, no? Kind of a rotation. Do a few pieces of thread on the bluetits, then move on to something more interesting.