He's done!

Now fingers crossed the people at the framers will be able to help with the puckering.  I'm pretty sure a square mat around the edge will fix (pronounced 'hide') the wonky edge of the printed background. 😀

I love him.  I love him.  I love him! 💕 I almost want to crow myself haha. 🐓🐓🐓

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Nearly there...

Well he's nearly done.  Do those beautiful blogs that only ever show you a tiny little peak of the current project drive you crazy??  Well, they drive me crazy.  But I wanted to stop in and share my progress but he is so achingly close to completion that I'm going to do the dreaded 'sneak peak' thing. I'm sorry but he is SOOO close to done.

I spent quite a few hours in the weekend working on him.  I stitched and stitched trying to get him finished.  I stitched until I just couldn't see the difference between the colours any longer and this is all I have left.  Remembering he's only 10cm x 10 cm in his entirety.  So this little bit is probably just over 1 cm long and not quite 1 cm deep at the deepest point.  I was gutted!

But I'm so pleased I pushed past my fear with him.  

He's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  So many times I've been bent over him thinking ohhh these colours don't work or the colour changes are too sharp.  The stitches are too uneven or they're too lumpy.  But sometimes you just need to step back a bit, put it down for a bit, walk away.  Take a photo even (which I'm finding is a great way to do it).  You need to stop being lost in the individual stitches and colours.  Step back and see the overall effect.  No-one (but you) is going to notice that you've got two identical length stitches side by side there instead of staggered a bit.  They're not going to notice that the colours don't look quite like the original picture cause they're not going to see the original picture.  And no-one is going to notice that your shading might be a bit wobbly in that spot, or that one, or even that one over there.  Because its not about the individual stitches or even this section over that section.  It's about creating something beautiful.

And while its harder to swallow, even if they do spot all those imperfections that I'm sure are there.  So what!  I'm super proud of him.  I think he looks fab.  What the heck do 'they' know anyway! 😏

Anyway I have tomorrow off work so fingers crossed I'll get him finished.  No chores until he's done!

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Progress - Yes!

I seem to be making some progress on my Beyond TAST rooster.  I think coming to the realisation that he was going to be eternally awful in his unfinished state has given me enough courage to carry on with him even though I have no idea what I'm doing and I could very well make a terrible mess of it.  But he's definitely going to look awful half done.  Anyway the wattle is done and I've begun work on his comb.

I'm still not that happy with the reds... but you can only sew with what you have or what you can get. And even though they're a lot 'redder' than the original image I'm pleased with how its turned out.  I wish I was more artistic and could relate the colours for the shading better... but I think I've got enough colour differences in there to at least not have it appear totally flat.

I think I used about 5 or 6 different reds in the wattle.  At one stage I had them all going at once.  What a nightmare, tangles everywhere and the colours are so close in value that at times it became simply a case of 'ok lets throw a bit of that one in there now' without any real clue which one I was using haha.  Its definitely not been a section I have been able to sew at night, even with my sewing light.  Maybe I should start working on the beak during the evenings... hmmm maybe.

Anyway here he is so far.

The next Beyond TAST stitch or stitches have been announced and they're individual stitches.  Not sure I'll get around to trying something with those, not for a while anyway.  I want to get this guy finished.

Oh! and yes he is as wonky as a wonky thing.  I'll see what I can do with him once he's done... The stitching on the comb seems to be pulling that section in as I go... so its obviously just the mass of stitches causing it.   I still love him, wonky bits and all.  I really should try some form of backing next time.  I'll learn eventually haha.

Miss P's TAST progress

Did I mention my sister gave Miss P a huge case of threads?  We're busy working our way through it, putting it all on nice new plastic bobbins and relabelling it.  Seems my daughter has the same pedantic ways as her mother and prefers it all looks nice and neat.  Anyway, she's doing pretty well.  She's finished Fly and Detached chain.

I think I mentioned that we're doing TAST together and that she's picking the elements we include for each 'motif' on our sampler.  So for this one we've got a felt Letter (no idea why she picked an H) and a bit of ribbon, and 3 buttons (not in the picture) along with the two stitches, Fly and Detached Chain. 

I've set her up a FB account so she can post to the TAST group herself which she's pretty keen to do. So now we're just waiting on approval.  

I have possibly opened up Pandoras box with the FB account I know.  But she's under strict instructions on how it will be used and how it will NOT be used.   😀

Speaking of which why is she so quiet??  Thats never a good sign.  Sounds like I better finish my ramblings and go check.

Anyway thats it for now, thanks for stopping by.  

Oh! I almost forgot, feel free to leave a comment, I suddenly seem to be able to reply to them which is new.  Whoop! Whoop!