Red Geisha - Day 39/40

She is done! Couple of mistakes here and there, but I have been assured that they don't make it look bad, so I didn't go back to redo. Especially since they were in the metallic backstitching, and I did not really want to try and keep the metallic thread in place for 2 backstitches.

She still needs a wash and iron, but that's for another day :)

Next project was supposed to be the Mario map, but I may need to order different Aida; the stuff I ended up buying wasn't the best quality. I'm going to try and stretch it in the frame. If that doesn't work, I'm going to try dying my own black. If that doesn't work, I'm going to have to order some 18ct black online. If I can't use the stuff I bought, I'm going to start on the epic pokemon gen I stitch, and do the Mario map afterward.

Red Geisha - Day 36/37/38

So when I said I was going to get her done before Thursday, I of course meant not including the backstitching. And metallic. And beads.

Of course.

She has a face at least now though!

You can kind of make out the metallic patterns in her hair. They're just criss-crossing diagonal lines. Instead of doing short backstitches only crossing one stitch, I did the lines unbroken top to bottom, then tried to weave them together... I had much better success with that with the ones on the top of her head rather than the ones on the side. I still have to put up with the metallics with some more backstitching on her purple bow (it circles the black dots), and of course the diamonds on the gold under-robe.

Other than that, it's just all the dark gray outlines and the beads! You can see on her left sleeve, I've already started some of the outlines.

Red Geisha - Day 35

Going to push for a finish this 'weekend'; no work until Thursday, so it's definitely feasible.

Red Geisha - Day 33/34

Background flowers just have their gold centres left to go.

I've started the parasol section by parking. I'm not sure if I'm going to go with two strands of metallic for the metallic stitches (like the pattern says), or one strand of metallic with one strand of the gold or dk. gold floss. I'm already pushing really hard to get the coverage I've got; I'm not looking forward to the thinner metallic thread.

Red Geisha - Day 31/32

That black line there looks pretty out of place... that's the outline of the parasol. That section will be 100% filled in with stitches, but that's all that's left of her (other than the flowers in the background).

Speaking of flowers in the background, I decided I could take on a bunch of them tonight, so I tackled a bunch of the purple bits. The gold centers shouldn't be quite as bad, since I can just fill inside the purple stitches.

The scroll frame didn't really work well when I was right at the top of the piece; there wasn't really anything holding it in the rod. I tried taping it down, but that didn't work so well. So I cut a separate piece of cloth wide enough to wrap around the rod a couple times, sewed the top of aida to that (to lengthen it), and it worked wonderfully. Once I start on the backstitching/beads/metallic, I'll do the same thing to the bottom of the piece too probably. It takes a bit of time to set up, but it makes using the scroll frame really easy.

Red Geisha - Day 29/30

I got a new toy this weekend. It doesn't hold the cloth quite as taut as the Q-snap, but it's much easier to change the section I'm working on, and I can see the entire width all at once which is really nice.

Her right sleeve is complete! Right hand, head, parasol, and background flowers are all that's left now!

Red Geisha - Day 28

Well, considering how much I got done this evening, I think I'm well set up to get that second sleeve done this weekend. The end is in sight!

Red Geisha - Day 27

And that's her collar done. 

The empty space on the left side is where her right hand will be, and the oddly-placed black spot is the bottom of the parasol's handle. It looks like it's outlined in white because it's got a bunch of quarter stitches... in theory that should disappear when I do the backstitch outlines.

Red Geisha - Day 26

She's got... I guess... a shoulder? Her collar's pretty low, so I think that might just be more arm (and chest too, obviously). Planning on working across the collar/chest sections, then I'm hoping to get her right sleeve done this weekend.

Red Geisha - Day 24/25

Flowers on the first sleeve are done! I can't believe they took me two evenings to get done. 

Part of that was puppy class on Monday, and an appointment tonight, but also I got the floss in the mail when I got home from work today that I assumed had been lost! The last I checked, the tracking was showing that it hadn't left China, and I'd gotten a refund since it was past the shipping window. When I saw the package, I kind of assumed that it was the second set I'd ordered and was slightly disappointed since that was supposed to come with needles. But when I started going through the colours, it was the lost order! And I ended up getting an extra two skeins of 310 Black, so 202 skeins for $40.00 (except, for $0.00 because of the refund).
So this means that I've the floss for the Super Mario Map (already separated into a bag with the aida), and in theory for the Epic Pokemon piece too ('in theory' because I didn't actually separate it out, but I ordered it to complete the two of them, so *crossed fingers*).

Red Geisha - Day 22/23

Cut it kind of close, but ended up finishing all the red on her left sleeve this weekend. Especially now that they're all outlined (in red of course; not backstitch), the flowers and leaves shouldn't take too much longer to finish off the sleeve.

Red Geisha - Day 21

It's official... I have to take the pictures in portrait now instead of landscape on this one.

I REALLY hope I counted right on those flowers up the side, else I'm going to have a lot to undo. I keep triple checking where my stitches line up, just in case.

I ended up doing the backstitching on her hand, as it didn't really look like much of anything without it, and I wanted to see what it was going to look like :)

Red Geisha - Day 20

The purple parts of the purple bow are done! Black spots next :) That odd concave arc about halfway down the trailing end of the bow is where her left sleeve overlaps. It should look much better once that gets started.

Red Geisha - Day 19

Only two partial columns left to go on the big bow (and then the black spots)! I'm not quite sure what the next section I'm going to do is, but I know her left sleeve will be the next big section to be done. I might do the purple ribbon on her right sleeve first.

I'm really having fun with the parking. I might just continue on with that.

Red Geisha - Day 17/18

Finished off the red section then started on the bow... and realized that I wanted to do some parking. So I did. I don't know if it was faster this way or not... but I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it more than if I had just done cross country. I only did the three purples: the black dots I'll do at the end once all the purples are done.

Red Geisha - Day 14/15/16

One more colour left in this section (the light red), then on to the purple bow!

Red Geisha - Day 12/13

This is cheating a little bit... a bunch of this was done yesterday, but I was too tired when I got home to get a picture. I did end up deciding to go from the bottom up. It was nice to see that bottom section emerge.

Red Geisha - Day 11

Tried a different kind of pin stitch this time... I like it better. It's MUCH less visible from the front, and it seems like it holds the thread just as well as the other, so I think I'm going to stick with this one unless I discover that it's not actually as secure as I thought.

Pretty sure I'm done with the darkest red on this section of robe. Not sure whether I'm going to stick with one colour at a time, or work from the bottom up now.

Red Geisha - Day 10

All of the dark red up to the top of the gold section should now be done, just have the top 3rd or so to do to bring it up to her belt. Then on to the next colour!

Red Geisha - Day 9

More dark red... that one's going to take a while for this section; there's a lot of it. Well, all of the reds probably. It's hard to tell just how much of the other reds there are since the symbols have similar weights. The dark red was the easiest to pick out from the surrounding symbols, which was why I started with it.