My Fourth Finish of the Year

Surprising myself, I've gotten a lot of things finished so far this year. I just hope it continues. This is Orna Willis' Midnight Garden, and I finished it just over a week ago. The main problem I had with it was the French knots. They tried to pull themselves out even after I was done with them. I like the look of it still and might stitch it again in another colorway in a couple of years.

Another Mysterie

This is the third German stitching group start of the month. It's by Tam of Tam's Creations and is in nine parts. This is the first, and once again I switched up the colors and used Vikki Clayton's fabric and floss. I'm really trying to stash stitch this year. I think the colors look pretty good. This one's going to be quicker than the other two because a part comes out every ten days.

Last of the Light Red

Managed to stitch on this and some of the other things twice this week. The light red of the flag is done, and more of the skirt. Like everything else, when I work on it, I can see progress. I think I'm just at the blah stage of the project. I'll get over it.

Last of the Asian Nights

This is how I received the block from the previous person. I was disappointed that half the patches were completely bare, and same with the seams. Why? Because I'm the last person to work on it. I added a lot, and it looks almost full now...

This is the block after my work. Since the theme is anything Asian, I added noshi ribbons (for good fortune, a Japanese tradition) to the top left. They came out better than I thought they would. I used colors already on the block for the ribbons and tacked them down with beads. On the far right, and it's a little hard to see, I added a bead seam treatment; its inspiration was the simple geometric designs found in Asian art.

Here's a close up of the noshi ribbons. Yes, I did thread them through each other.

And this is a closer view of the golden vine I added, along with the other seam. Its inspiration was also the geometric designs of oriental art, but this time the more complicated ones. I hope the recipient likes what I did.

Back to the Man

Time for some more outlining and filling in. The outlining goes so much quicker because there's less of it, but the filling in is just that - no having to count or anything.

New Group Project

My German stitching group has started a new project (again). Yes, it's the second of three! projects they've started this month. This one is called Zentangle and is designed by Elke Reiss. I have the complete outline of part one done and just neeed to fill in the middle with blackwork. I went waaaay outside my normal color choices on this, using a piece of Vikki Clayton's linen I had around and yet another mystery spool of hers. I like the way the colors go together.

Playing in the Middle

It was time to start the middle motifs this week, and you can see they're a lot different color-wise from the edge. I'm kind of surprised at how long this is taking me to do, but I really shouldn't be by now. Things always take longer than I expect.