The end of Fandango

We were scheduled to have some nice sun over the weekend, so I gave Fandango a bath.

While waiting for it to set, I started packing away what was left of the class kit. We were originally given two ball of #8 and #12 perle cotton. As you can see I have some leftover.

Bright and early, Sunday morning I got up excited to take pictures. I still can't believe it's finished. You can click on them to get a bigger view.

Barbara Kershaw gave us a lovely design to work on, filled with a variety of different stitches and techniques. The design is challenging for beginners and has a lot to keep the advanced stitcher interested.

I stitched the piece as designed except for these modifications:

• Replaced picots in center square for beads.
• Replaced picots in blanket stitch border for beads.
• For the four big "flowers", the center bullions were stitched as follows: stitch two bullions starting and ending from the same fabric hole, come back out of fabric in between and insert a bead. This is finished with a bead at the center.
• For the smaller flowers, they are more closely stitched than designed due to a misread of the pattern. So instead of the bullions that should have gone in that space, there is a single bead placed at the center.
• The Palestrina knot swirls are stitched with a bead in between each knot. 

I'm so glad I put those beads in. They just pop against the white and with the darker wood underneath you can finally see all the work that went into those needlelace squares.

Now for the stats, I started this project on February 9 and it was finished November 9 (what a coincidence!). It took a total of 197.75 hours over 73 days to complete.

I hope you all enjoyed reading about my progress on Fandango as much as I enjoyed stitching it :) A special thanks to Virtual Thread for awarding me the grant for Seminar. I had such a great experience that I'm looking forward to my next Seminar class in May (crossing my fingers I get my first choice). I can't say enough on how amazing it is to go to a National Seminar be it with EAC or EGA for those living in the US. You get to meet so many people from all over the country who all share a common interest, not to mention the knowledge that all these stitchers bring. And as a bonus you get to visit a different part of the country. I always say in the stitching world there are no strangers ;) So even if you have no one to go with, just go anyways. You'll meet so many people you will never feel alone.