Stitching update

This week's Stitcher's Blogging Question:

9/21/05: What is the most challenging specialty stitch you have ever stitched?

To date, it's a toss up between a lazy daisy (I never get them to look right), and a really clean solid block of satin stitches (I also never get them to look right).

I don't do a lot of pieces that have multitudes of specialty stitches-- Egyptian Sampler is my first real sampler with them. But I'm thinking that eventually I'll want to start picking up all of those Victoria Sampler state/province hearts because each one focuses on a specific stitch.


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My stitching this week is going well. I'm plugging away on The Castle again, and doing a lot of little filler work on the rocks-- all of those one to five stitch sections of a single color that you really can't do correctly until you get all the other colors around them done. But those few stitches just make the entire project look closer to being done. I'm seeing a concrete definition of the outline of the dragon's spines as I form those quarter stitches that divide rock from dragon.

Yesterday, as I plugged a few of these stitches in and took a look at the big picture, it struck me-- this project is getting done. I have several hundred more stitches to go, but the overall picture is far closer to being done than to being started now. I have a tail, a smaller rock section, and some water ripples-- and it's done.

This project has been in my stash for nine years. I still remember purchasing it, and the comment of a woman at the shop-- "Those blended stitches are a pain in the ass. It's going to take you a couple years to do this, and it's so frustrating. Do you really want to commit the time?"

Hell yes I do (did). The blends were a bit of a pain to get used to, but now that I have a system down, they're not that bad. I just label a bobbin with that blend's symbol on the chart, and keep a supply of those colors together. No problem.

I have to laugh-- that woman was so serious about how evil this project would be. And now I look at my stash, and how many unfinished Teresa Wentzler pieces I have to plug through. By her account, all of my stitching is completely evil.

I'll take it. :)