Tea or Coffee?

Well I've made quite a bit of progress on this during the last few days and pleasingly I've used a few different stitches (go me!).

Those big flowers have done my head in a bit.  There was too much of that yellow-y colour so I added a bit of the brown.  I don't mind the smaller of the two flowers (top of the pic), but I think I've gone a bit too far with the larger one (bottom of the pic).  But before I rip it out I'm going to fill in around it and see how it sits then.

In case anyones interested in the detail here is some closer up photos and the stitches used.  Please of course excuse the washable pen marks.

Dark French knots in the centre, surrounded by two rows of buttonhole wheel in the mid range brown.  And then buttonholed the whole way around the resulting outer circle.  Then in the dark thread again surrounded with herringbone, and fly stitch.  With more French knots inside the fly stitch.












Chain stitch filling, with split stitch stems, topped with French knots.












Split stitch outline, with back stitch detail in the outer petals.  Feather stitch detail in the centre petal with French knots on the ends.  And a sprinkle of French knots top.












Satin stitch centre, surrounded by running stitch. Then split stitch outline for the petals, with (badly) needlepainted centres.  Back stitch 'spokes' topped with detached chain.

Split stitch stems (its my favourite stitch) with detached chain leaves.  Satin stitch yellow, edged with more split stitch, and a bit of split stitch filling for the top of the flowers while I was there.

French knot base in the dark colour, with needlepainted 'petals'.  Centre stems are done in continuous fly (I thought this had a name all of its own, but I can't seem to find it).  Outer stems split stitch topped with French knots again.

So not a lot of different stitches, but already more than I expected I would use.  😀  While I generally try to stitch to two strands of floss for Chicken Little to keep them the 'same', its quite nice chopping and changing from 1 to 2 strands to get different effects.  

Learnings - So much more practice required for needlepainting.  (maybe that should be my next project).

Blogger limitations

I've also spent some time this week trying to figure out how to reply to comments.  It seems that this feature of Blogger is sadly lacking.  So please know that I do read the comments and its really nice to know there is someone out there reading my ramblings.  If anyone else also uses blogger and uses a third party comments thingie that allows replies then if you'd let me know which one you use that would be FAB!  Because currently I'm just a bit confused haha.  (Nothing new there!)

Excitement factor 9

Nothing to do with embroidery.  But the hens starting making a bit of a ruckus last night and we ran out thinking something was attacking them.  But no, we had a visit from the Three Little Pigs.  Well Ok not THE Three Little Pigs, but 3 wild pigs all the same, just young ones.  Hubby got this photo from our deck of two of them.  While we were super excited to see them we stayed safely on the deck as we weren't that keen to meet their Mumma (we're so brave - NOT!).   The poor things will probably end up on someones dinner table at some point in the future but for today we just appreciated their visit.  🐷🐷🐷💗

Until next time!