Twilight Silhouette

It is done! Before and after backstitching:

There's a lot more fairy dust after the backstitching. There were a lot more French knots than I thought going into this. I didn't think there were quite that many French knot stars.

The French knots actually weren't that bad. It was the blending filament that was the worst. It was trying to curl up on itself, so it would knot easily when being drawn through the fabric, but it also needed three strands at once, which meant both that it was even more prone to knotting, and the three threads always wanted to sit in the needle at different points because of the curling. I ended up doing one strand at a time, and just doing all the backstitching thrice.

The black backstitching I did the same thing with, but for a different reason: most of the black was one strand, but there were a couple places where it used two strands (the sparkles) and four strands (the curls on the wing tips). I didn't want to have to come back and lock down a new set of threads, so since there were so few places with more strands and they were so close to where the single strand stitches were supposed to go, I just did those with the single strand as well, just going over the stitches multiple times to make up the weight.

The difference in colour in the black cross stitches worked itself out, so I'm pretty confident in saying that the thread faded from me handling it. Unfortunately - though the cross stitches now match - the black half stitches were done a lot later and weren't handled near as much... and they're a lot darker still. I'm hoping washing the piece evens everything out.

Also, I'm sure I've probably missed at least one blade of grass (it was hard to keep track as I went), but oh well. It's done. I'm not going back now. So there.

Twilight Silhouette

All the black's done now, we're down to the last four symbols, then the backstitching. I'm getting to the point now that I'm starting to think about what I'm going to do when this one's done. It's currently a toss up between doing the next section on Elegance of the Orient, and getting back into Hidden Harbour. I'm leaning towards Elegance, since I've got marker on that one, and I'm slightly worried about it not washing out if I leave it too long.

Twilight Silhouette and The Guardian

First off, Twilight Silhouette progress.

Couple more symbols are done, getting close to the end of this one!

So we moved this weekend, and in the process of unpacking stuff from storage, I found a couple things that I thought were lost!

I think this guy was my second ever cross stitch that I did. I'm almost positive that my first-one-ever is definitely lost, but I'm glad this guy was recovered. It's a Dimensions kit called Frederick the Literate.

This is Teresa Wentzler's The Guardian. I thought this was lost a while ago during a car cleaning, but it turns out it was just in storage!

There are a couple problems with this one, the larger of which is that it's FULL of partial stitches, and my pattern analyzer is currently hard coded with one stitch per grid-square. I'd have to switch up a chunk of the pattern-to-data logic to accommodate, park it, or continue cross country as I started.

The second issue, though smaller, is that apparently at some point in time I switched which direction my stitches go in, and this piece is backward to my normal direction. I just know I'm going to get at least some stitches wrong.

Also, it's quite dirty, and I'm not sure if I should clean it before finishing it, or clean it all at once after. It's not like the dirt's going to come off any easier if I do it now vs later (it's been probably at least 10 years since I touched this), and that way I can get started on it again faster!

Twilight Silhouette

Another symbol down. It's really filling in now. I doubt I'll get it done by the end of the weekend since we're moving on Saturday, but hopefully it'll be done by the weekend after that!

Twilight Silhouette

Yet another symbol done. All the rest now officially have less than 1000 stitches each.

I made a mistake with this last symbol. Can you tell? I missed a single stitch. I don't like single half stitches. I will just use a different colour in the area when I get there to fill it in.

Twilight Sillhouette

Should have gotten a lot more done this weekend, except that I totally miscounted on the thicker blue right from the top of the moon all the way down the entire arc and didn't notice until I tried to line up the stitches with the grass. So I had to tear out about half of those stitches too (good thing I didn't run out of thread!).

On the home stretch now though: the three symbols that are done so far are the biggest three, so it should be done soon! Assuming our house move next weekend doesn't take too much time :)

Twilight Sillhouette

Apparently I've been a bit lax in taking pictures of this one. I meant to grab one once the black was done, and totally forgot. Probably because I totally miscounted on the black and almost finished it before realizing, and had to pull out about a third of it, wasting about five hours.

Oh well.

All the full cross stitches are officially done now, just the half stitches left on this half, then the backstitching!

I kind of like the look of it at this stage, where the right fairy's extending off the background. It reminds me of the Bob Ross paintings where he adds trees at the end that extend off the sides of the painting. But of course I'm not going to leave it like that :)

Twilight Silhouette

Right half is officially done (as always, except for the backstitching and French knots)!

It would have been done earlier, except I didn't stitch at all on Thursday or Friday, and then I spent a bunch of time on the weekend playing a bunch of Factorio instead of stitching. So instead of getting started on the left half, I only just barely finished the right half in time.

Back to the Autumn tree for the next five days!

Twilight Silhouette

So I've decided to try something new. As is obvious, I did not in fact return to hidden harbor, instead getting a BUNCH of Twilight Silhouette done (there's a fairy now!). There were 7 full rows (across both the left and right sides) that were entirely made up of black cross stitches, as you can see the thick black line across the left. There were 10 full rows of black X's on the right side. The black is officially done on the right side already though.

I'm planning on trying a strategy that I read on a different crafting blog a while back (I don't remember which one, else I'd link it). Basically, 5 days per WIP, then switch to another one (splitting each month into equal sections, getting a bonus sixth day on the 31st, and losing a couple days at the end of Feb). I made a list of my WIPs (plus some pieces I haven't started yet), and rolled randomly to see what order I'd do them in, rerolling if I ended up with the same one twice in a row. I planned out to December (because why not), and I'll just remove pieces and move them back should I finish one and it's still got scheduled time.

So, long story short, for the next five days, I should be working on Cat Comfort.

Many things were worked on

So there was a new job started recently, and I've been crashing pretty early and not getting a lot done. The first week has officially been conquered now though, so time to show off the little bit that got done in the meantime.

The pokemon piece is temporarily on hold for now, since I really don't like that thread on the 28-count. It's too thick and making it too hard to get stitches in. I'm looking at either using different thread or different cloth, but for now there are other projects to work on!

The Autumn tree is starting to become more pink (down at the bottom). That will slowly take over the rainbow of the printed pattern.

Elegance got another column and a half. I'm going with 20-stitch-wide columns on her instead of 10, so each column takes longer, but I think it should end up going a bit faster in the long run. 

In person, the difference between the darker and lighter yellows is a LOT harder to see. Maybe it's just the light I'm using. Or maybe I just need to zoom out more often. The seams between columns are also less obvious in person. The backstitching should help hide that when the time comes.

When I got to the section where the entire row was just black cross stitches on Twilight, I checked the left half of the pattern and realized that that half had the entire row in black as well... so those rows I just continued across the whole thing. Only one more row of that though, and then I return to just the right half (the right half has 10 full rows of black, while the left half only has 7). It gives me an idea of how big the piece is going to be though. It seems like there's already a lot done on this one!

Twilight Silhouette - Day 2

So. Much. Black. Seriously. The kit came with 47 lengths of black floss. At least it's not black-on-black, but black-on-navy is almost as bad.

See that little black mark up in the top right of the photo? The rows until that point are just filled in with black cross stitches. And even after that point there's still a lot, but that's when I'll need to start paying attention again as other colours will start creeping in again.

As much fun as it is, I might need to take a break from all that black.

Twilight Silhouette - Day 1

Trips to Mary Maxim are dangerous. I picked up both this piece and Elegance of the Orient and spent way too much money. And of course I couldn't buy a new piece without getting started, and so the result above.

This one should actually whip up pretty quickly, considering there's a large amount of half stitches (which of course go twice as fast as full stitches).