Crewel Finish

This is an on time finish for my group correspondence course - it'll be mailed on Monday. It's also the last piece in my 25 project challenge. I think overall it came out pretty well. If I'd been thinking about it, I would have reversed to colors of the bullion flowers on the top left and the pink spiky flowers on the bottom. The top lily-looking flower looks a bit skimpy in the full sized photo, but it doesn't in person. My laying and couching to get it straight and exact still needs a bit of work. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out. Now to get it evaluated.

Tulips Done

This is coming along pretty quickly. The two tulips on the left are done, and the largest flower is started. I've so changed the colors around on this. I think it looks good, though. My hope is to finish this before my husband gets home from his business trip on Friday. I've been learning a lot. I think my shading on the long and short stitch on the partially completed flower is better than my previous attempts at it.

Flowers and Leaves

I've made a lot of progress on this this week. I even learned how to make bullion roses. For a novice, I think they came out pretty well. Now I'm down to the big flowers and leaves. Since I'm working on this every day now, I hope to finish them by the end of the week, so I can send it to evaluation at the beginning of the month.

I think some of it would translate better to silk, especially the smaller flowers. Maybe next project I'll mix fibers.

Balancing Leaves

I got the second leaf done this week. For some reason, this one took a bit longer than the first Both of them look a bit more ragged than I hoped. I'm not sure if it's because of the stitch she had us use as outline to make it look ragged-edged, or if it's just overall me not doing a good job. Ah, well. It's only my second or third crewel project in years and I've been doing this part in hand as she says to.

Leafing Out

I'm getting to the real stuff now - all the big things that need to be filled in. One leaf is done, all in chain stitch, and the other will be (plus something else, I hope) this week. The zodiac thing is taking up significant amounts of stitching time so I can get it done, and then last night I went off the reservation with the crazy quilt block.

I think I shaded the leaf fairly well. For some reason, I've come to like doing crewel more and more despite my "color in the lines" personality and liking of all things counted.

Lining it Out

I got most of the tendrils done this week. The knotted Portugese stitch 9darker wool) looks good, but it has a nub at the beginning from the way it starts that I don't like. I had to be careful to not pull the whipped stem stitch very tightly to make it smooth, else it was pulling up and out of shape.

Another Start

This is another piece with a deadline - crewel, and it needs to be done by the beginning of February. Crewel goes very quickly for me, so I should be able to get it done by then. The hardest part is starting - transferring the design to the fabric. I use a big picture window in my kitchen, so it has to be done during daylight. It's an EGA group correspondence course, so I need to get it done to get graded. The piece is called Crewel Choices and it's by Judy Jeroy.