Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Inspiration - Rosewood Manor



After working so long on getting those blankets finished and then stitching for a month solid on the Mermaid to finish her in time for the fair, it felt really good to start something new.

Did I pick one of the pieces that have been on my to-do list for ages and ages. Oh, of course not - I had to start the fabulous piece I just bought on our get-together this past Saturday! What fun to work on.

I see that my digital camera has some sort of weird smudges on the lens or something, but I'm too lazy to retake the pic. I think this is still a pretty decent picture, you can see the detail pretty well. The linen is 32ct Moonglow Belfast and the design is all done in DMC - which I love. No extra expensive fibers to buy, which sometimes puts me off of large and lovely samplers. The linen is really soft and nice to work on too, and supposedly although it has a hand-dyed look, it is actually colorfast, meaning I can wash it when I'm done. Since this piece has a lot of thread changes, I'll likely not put it in my Q-snaps and up on my lapstand. I'll probably just keep moving around my little 6in. metal hoop, which means I'll want to wash and press it when I'm done!

It is all whole stitches and backstitches - no beads, no partial stitches, no specialty stitches. Don't get me wrong, I like all those things, but it is nice to have a piece that doesn't have all those things thrown in the mix of my rotation too! And with all the stopping and starting it is still challenging enough and still beautiful enough to hold my attention. Perfection!

Speaking of my rotation, with the major hurdles out of the way, I've decided to try something completely new with my rotation. Well, new to me - I know there are several other stitchers who already use this method, so I cannot really claim credit for coming up with it or anything. Since I have 6 large projects, I'm going to try to rotate nightly, with a "free" night on the 7th night of the week. I will put the projects I want to finish first on Sat. and Sun. since I get the most stitching time on the weekend. The problem I see that might come up with this method is that I might not see enough progress before having to move on in the rotation since on weeknights I often only get an hour of stitching time and if we have a busy weekend, Sat or Sun. might not be any better. I'm going to give it a go though, and if I find I'm getting frustrated not making enough progress I might do a week on this rotation and then a week on a "focus piece". We'll have to see. I'll suspend the rotation for any Round Robins that come in the mail as I am completely hopeless in that area - have to start it as soon as I open the package! So for now here is the new rotation:

Saturday: Alhambra Garden
Sunday: Angel of Summer
Monday: Hardanger table runner
Tuesday: Silkwood Manor
Wednesday: Mother's Tree
Thursday: Inspiration
Friday: "free" day

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I cannot believe you've gotten so much done on that piece already! WOW!

Good luck with the new rotation. It sounds fun, actually, because you get to work on something different all the time and won't get bored. Let us know how it goes.

cathymk said...

I'm so glad you are stitching Inspiration, it's such a gorgeous piece. Yours is already looking lovely - I'm going to enjoy watching yours grow.

Singular Stitches said...

That's SO pretty!! I just love the colors.

Jill in CA said...

I love that design so much after seeing your picture that I just e-mailed Lois at Elegant Stitch to see if she carries the fabric. It looks fabulous so far!

Michelle said...

Beautiful start! I just love this piece. I'll probably have to stitch it too! Good luck with your new rotation!

Cheryl said...

Inspiration looks gorgeous! I LOVE this piece but it looks huge and with some other big projects on the go i definitely don't want to start another. I'll just enjoy watching your progress!

Susan @ Real Girl Designs said...

You've done so much on Rosewood Manor - I can't wait to see this one finished. I love the linen (but you already knew that)!

Aussie Stitcher said...

Your Inspiration looks great. I hope your new rotation works for you and keeps you stitching.

Joanne