Blackwork Contrast Color Wheel

It's been a while since my last post. I didn't mean to keep it so long, I guess I lost track of time. I have lots to share with you, but I will start with the color wheel as that seems to be a favorite.

I finally made it all around with the hues. It's very interesting stitching with the different colors. Every color gives off a different feeling. Some feel thicker than others, for example the purple versus the yellow. I enjoyed stitching with those colors more.

Now that the main blocks are in, I can use them as a guide for the remaining color blocks. As I fill more and more areas, I'll be able to go around the color wheel faster.

I'm actually further along than this, having completed filling the orange block with blue and am working on filling the purple block with yellow. Just no picture yet.

I can't wait to complete this round, so I can start stitching with another color family.

Poppy Pouch - Flowers

Last time I shared pictures, I had half a flower completed. We had our monthly Japanese embroidery meetup the next day and I got to work completing both flowers.

I'm really happy with how they came out. Coloring that template really helped me visualize where to put the different shades of blue.

Over the weekend, we had our fourth lesson and covered how to stitch the last element of the flowers: the leaves. We want the leaves to look like they are "painted" we also want to get the right angle. The same way we would stitch leaves in Japanese silk embroidery.

1st attempt

2nd attempt

So for the leaves, instead of making multiple short lines of beads, I went with long strands of beads. These are then couched down making them curve. I had some trouble getting this right, so for comparison purpose I'm also including my first attempt (above) for you to see the difference.

The leaves are in the background and I need to keep them there, so the darker blue was not used. For darker areas, I used the medium blue (not too much) and predominantly used the light blue and crystal.

We have two lessons left. We'll be covering one more technique, for the background of the flowers, and the last lesson will be spent discussing how to do the finishing. In the meantime, I'm getting busy with the other side. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, it looks like I have a very high chance I could finish the embroidery before the end of lessons. So my objective for the next two weeks is to complete the flowers and petals, and the vertical to and fro on both sides. If I get those done, I'll then have two weeks to complete the background surrounding the flowers.

February TUSAL

Not quite late but not on time either. This month again, just like the weather outside, my ORT jar was snowed with threads from Poppy Pouch. I promise though, I did work on other things. As proof, here's the bottom of jar.

I completed the purple and have since start the green hue on my contrast color wheel. I'm thinking once I have these large blocks in (2 more colors to go), the stitching may go faster as I'll some existing stitches to use as a reference. Famous last words.

Not sure how much I'll get to work on this piece in the near future as I'm really fired up to finish Poppy Pouch before the end of the class. We have two lessons left!