Monday, February 09, 2009

Still stitching!

I hope all you ladies have had a great weekend! We had nearly half an inch of rain here in Phoenix on Sunday so it has been a lovely, misty moisty weekend for us. We don't get too many of those here so we really appreciate it when we do!

I've added a few more bunches of grass to the single one that was there before. Here is a rather elongated picture... I think you'll have to click on it to see it in any viewable size.
Bottom row - grasses
It's not a great picture since I had to stand so far back... but you get the idea. That tuft of grass on the left was looking a little lonely so I have since added another, smaller, tuft just to the right of it. Pictures next post. As I look at this, I see I'm going to have to remove that squiggly green seam treatment above the left hand tuft of grass... it looks kind of out of place!

If you look closely, you'll see the outline of a snail just under the little starburst stitch. This is supposed to be a kind of forest floor picture along these blocks so the snail is quite large compared to the grasses, which are just baby bunches, really. Here's a close-up of the snail outline.
Snail outline
I found a picture of the kind of snail I wanted, one with a really nice big shell. Then I traced the outline on some tissue paper and used that to stitch through so the outline was transferred to the block. I used a varigated silk thread to do a padded satin stitch for the shell. The padding was with #5 perle cotton (I'm not completely crazy!) and the satin stitch itself was done with a 12 strand silk (Caron Waterlilies) that really has some good reflective qualities. I used just one strand of the silk floss so it took me four evenings to get done, but I really enjoyed doing it.
Snail shell in satin stitch
You'll see a break in the stitching about 2/3 of the way back along the shell. I'll be adding a line of beads there, as soon as I can find the perfect ones. I think it came out pretty good. I started at the back tip and worked my way forward. The sections I did later are definitely better than the first ones... it's been awhile since I did satin stitch! ;0) I'm not sure what I'll do for the body of the snail... still thinking about that one.

That's all for now. I'm still not feeling well and I'm really tired most of the time, so this post is rather short. Take care, ladies!!

5 comments:

Jane said...

I really love the snail shell, it is really beautiful

Susan Elliott said...

I like the shading on your snail very much Marty. I thought you moved pretty quickly on him considering...glad you're taking time to find the right beads...it'll give him a chance to catch up with you.

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous stitching on that shell. Love the thread you used, too.

Did you like the rest of the rain, too. =) AJ got lots on two different nights. I'm wondering how this weekend will be.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for showing us the detail of the shell. Hope you like the rain we sent you. More coming.... Feel better real quick, 'kay?

Amy Munson said...

I like the stitching on the dark fabrics, looks fantastic.