I finally dug my camera out from under the pile of papers beside my computer and took photos of my progress with the Sumptuous Surfaces assignment. Yay! Click the thumbnails to see bigger pictures.
The design process started with a mind map that began with “Peace”. Since the supply list had encouraged not just monotone, but neutrals I had chosen whites and ecrus for my color palette. Not something I usually work in, unless I’m doing dresden work. 😉 But hey, is challenge, yes? I’m going to need to expand what I have further into the beiges as well, I think.
I ended up playing with thumbnails on the theme of “sea changes”. The first set of thumbnails I still like, but I think they’re going to require full stumpwork, and possibly a slightly larger color range to realize properly, and I just don’t have time to fiddle with it right now.
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So I moved on.
The second set of thumbnails is decidedly abstract, something I don’t normally play with. So this ups the challenge for me. I liked my last one, with it’s slightly curving lines and stars. No, I have no idea where the stars came from, unless it’s starfish. The thumnails are messy – just a way to get an idea on paper so I can remember it later, and maybe get an idea of how it may work. They are only about one by two inches.
The final design sketch is a lot less messy, and has a lot fewer lines on it. This is just the outline of the main areas, with no hint of the stitching, but a LOT of notes!
And I’ve had a chance to play a bit with the beginning of stitching this little monster. I used the Portuguese stem stitch to mark out the diagonal lines in the sand, and am using pulled work to add a little texture to the negaive space, letting it follow the same refinement the center line will follow: from rough texture at the bottom moving up through the buffing that sand and sea does to the smooth and even top right corner. The upper corner is pulled with small pulled cross stitches over three threads with silk floss. Just below that is an area of pulled cretan stitch, in a silk twist that’s the equivalent of #8 perle cotton. I’ll finish the bottom area, rougher, with pulled cretan stitch in a silk ribbon of similar color. And I may actually then lace the pulled stitches so that there is more ribbon on the top as well… I’ll have to see how that actually works in the white.
So, that’s the project so far. I should actually be caught up by Wednesday!
