Spirit of the Southwest Finished

Another finish! This was actually finished on Sunday, but I haven't had the chance to put up pictures yet. So here they are:

I will put up close up pictures of every Octagon here.

I have mixed feelings about this project. On the one hand, it was nice to work on something that was different and learning new stitches. I'd been looking at other stitchers WIP photos of it for over 2 years before I finally decided to buy the kit. On the other hand, when I picked this colorway I was expecting to get the same result as I saw in the pictures online. Due to threads being discontinued, substitutions were made and the end result is that what I got is very different. Most of the octagons are still stunning, but the octagons on the left and right of the middle row are a little blah compared to the others. But that's just me.

In the end, I am happy with it but not as enchanted with it as I was when I was looking at pictures of it.

I like to show the back of projects when I remember to take pictures of them.

Now I have to decide what I will do with it. My mom didn't really like the design, although she loved some of the colors in it. So I was planning to put it aside and have it framed and hung in my own house one day. A few weeks ago, she suggested I make it into a pillow. I kind of like the idea, I just have to figure out what to stitch in the spaces left over to make it into a square.

By the way, except for the class kits from the Creative Festival I am now down to one WIP :)

Project Updated

I haven't posted an update on my projects in a while, so here it goes.

Spirit of the Southwest is almost done. The string art was all finished last weekend (no pictures of that yet) and I started on the outer border right away. Here's a picture of where I was at Sunday afternoon. Since then I've stitched the second layer of cross stitches and have started the last layer of long stitches.

Flower Patch is almost done. I haven't taken pictures of it since finishing the roses, but there isn't much to see until it's all finished. I'm on the last side of pale green leaves and I should be able to complete it this week. I've been stitching this for 3 years and will be happy to move onto something new.

Knitting... So last week I said I would buy another type of needle (I got circular needles) and try again with the mystery thread. That didn't work out any better, so I left it alone. Yesterday, I received the book that contains the pattern I want to knit and decided to try it one more time before crying help. This time I pulled out a ball of thin baby thread that I had and tried again.

I tried casting on using the two knitting needles like they show you in the video and was still having a hard time. The bamboo needles are too long and awkward to hold, and the wire part of the circular needle keeps folding on itself. That and my tension is horrible. The last time I tried knitting, I did the cast on with one needle, it was awkward but I was able to get to the next step. Right now I feel like I'm floundering.

Tonight, I'm going to the Nutcracker Market to visit La Maison Tricotee's booth. I want to pick up another pair of scissors (You can see the pair I picked up last year in the picture below). They are hand made and feel very comfortable in my hands. The tip is also perfect for Hardanger. The person who makes them retired last year I think and they had a few of his scissors left. While I'm there I'll see if they can help me with my knitting issues.

Octagon H Completed

But wait! That's not all! I also managed to finish Octagon H, which is the last one in the pattern :)

Check out what Google Photo enhancement did to my progress photos. I'll have to figure out how to do this on purpose later and plan ahead to take advantage of it. It would make an awesome stop motion video.

The first layer, as always is made using tent stitches. After that there is a layer of diagonal stitches on each side using the Threadworx thread. I just noticed as I'm writing this post that the bottom side is darker than the others. I'll have to check that out in person when I get home.

The layer on top that looks like a bracelet with beads is stitched using Rainbow Gallery Flair, which is a stretchable ribbon. These are actually large cross stitches (2x4) which are then anchored with an "=". After that Panache thread (which is a dark grey) is stitched in between them. They look green in the picture.

The layer of green stitches on top are vertical long stitches with the center stitched over a layer of trame padding.

More diagonal long stitches. I like the left side, but am not 100% satisfied with the right.

This next part was fun. I've seen the spider stitch in pictures, but never got the opportunity to try it out. This particular one is the Ridged Spider Stitch. The instructions pointed to a page of Christensen's "The Needlepoint Book". However, not everyone just happens to have that book in their library. I ended up googling for the instructions. Luckily the ANG covered this stitch in their Stitch of the Month back in February lol.

The final touch is covering everything with the horizontal brick stitch. It was interesting but got boring after a while. Especially since I was so close to the end.

Here are all Octagons stitched. The next step is the string art followed by the outer border.

In other news, I have been working on Flower Patch, trying to get all those leaves filled out. I already have one side done. This took about a week, so I will be optimistic and say I will be done by December. We'll see how it goes.

Octagons G & I Completed

When I came back from the Creative Festival I was really eager to start some new projects, but I told myself I couldn't until I finished Spirit of the Southwest and Flower Patch. So I went back to my "rotation" and am happy to say that it's progressing VERY well.

Octagons G & I are exactly the same but mirrored, so I worked on both at the same time. They start with the same tent stitch row.

Which are followed by alternating rows of diagonal stitches and french knots. I really like how these came out.

Then there were 3 rows of Rhodes half drop using Threadworx. I tried to start both Octagons the exact same way so they would be mirrored. But you'll notice that the last row doesn't match the sequence of the other rows. That's because there was one less Rhode half drop in that row. I didn't realize till after I finished both Octagons and it didn't really bother me enough to undo it. Still something to make note of in case I want to restitch this pattern.

 The rest of the pattern is filled with basket-weave tent stitches (a lot of them). By the time I finished the tent stitches in the single color, it was Sunday night and time to stop for the weekend.

Saturday I picked up where I left off with the tent stitches. The last ten rows are mixed color threads. Doesn't it look like an ocean wave?

Here it is so far! I have closes ups of all the Octagons here if anyone wants to look back :)

Octagons E & F Completed

So last week I had started Octagon E and was able to finish it on the weekend. I took pictures and since it was the weekend (I don't usually post on weekends) I just kept going and started on Octagon F. Things went so fast that by Sunday it was almost done and I figured I'll just wait till F was done to post both together.

So the first one is Octagon E. It started off fun (I love those "hearts" in the corners), but then I had to pull out the Rayon thread. The eyelets look OK, but I just couldn't get the thread tight enough. I still feel like it's too loose in some areas (the thread kept slipping).

Eyelets in Rayon thread, that green is so bright

 After stitching the eyelets things just fell into place. The next part was long diagonal stitches. I love the effect, it looks so soft.

This was followed by more diagonal stitches in ThreadworX. I'm really glad how this turned out, I was worried the colors wouldn't match in each quadrant.

More diagonal stitching with tent stitches in between them and the eyelets. I think the lower right tent stitches look out of place. These are in the blue shades from the ThreadworX, while the others are all green.

Octagon E completed

Octagon E was finished early in the evening Saturday and I didn't feel like stopping. I almost did when I saw that F starts off with Rayon thread, but I convinced myself to get it out of the way so that I can do the fun stuff the next day ;)

This is the second time I stitch with this particular thread (it was used in Octagon D as the first layer), I guess I learned how to stitch with it because the stitching went much faster this time around. In the center it's the Scottish Reverse Stitch surrounded by more tent stitches and a layer of backstitch.

This was followed by more long stitches to form a helix(?). This is stitched first in #5 Perle Cotton and then in #8 Perle Cotton of the same color. The tent stitch at the tip of each wing was also supposed to be in the same color, but I decided to change it to the other #5 Perle Cotton which is a darker shade. I decided to do that after looking at the Octagon in another colorway (something I wish I had done while stitching Octagon D).

The next step was to form a grid and then anchor them with little X's

The end result gives you a nice grid with little stars. It's very nice in person, the pictures don't do it justice. I'll have to ask my sister to take nicer pictures with her camera at the end.

Octagon F Completed

Here it is, only 3 Octagons to go :)

Octagon D Completed

Yesterday I put in the final stitch on Octagon D. This is my favorite to date (probably because there were no French Knots lol).

It started off with the dreaded Rayon thread, but things picked up really fast once I got through them. The plus sign in the middle is surrounded by long stitched.

This was followed by more long stitches that form what looks like a feather. The final effect is really nice, except the two threads are the exactly the same. Because of the thread conversion (not sure if it's because I'm doing the Deep Blue Sea colorway), I ended up with both stitches being in the same color. It still looks nice in person anyways.

This was followed by the fastest stitching I've ever done. It starts off with more diagonal stitches to form a "lattice" which are then tethered by tent stitches over 2 threads (I'm probably not using the right words).

And here it is all done!

Here it is all together. Seeing how fast this is going, I'm wondering if I can finish Spirit of the Southwest before the end of the year. That's something to think about.

4 down, 5 to go

I've started looking at the patterns for Octagons E and F and they are really complex. I have sticky-notes everywhere on the pattern lol. So many that you can't even see the pattern itself anymore.

Octagon B Completed

That was fast!

I didn't stitch much during the week, but come Friday I sat down to continue work on Octagon B and nearly had a heart attack. Below the Eiffel, there was what, felt like, a whole forest of French Knots.

Eiffel Tower and forest of French Knots

These French Knots are stitched in a combination of two different threads that get darker as you go farther away. I hyped myself up and start stitching the first layer, but had to redo the left side 4 times before realizing that both sides couldn't be stitched the same with how my frame is set up. What I ended up doing is I would stitch a row on one side, then rotate the frame 90 degrees and stitch that row on the other side. This ensured I was stitching in the same direction to get the mirrored effect.

Another layer where the sides had to be perfectly mirrored is the diagonal long stitch using Threadworx thread.

Mirrored diagonal long stitch

The rest is a combination of more diagonal long stitches as well as tent stitches. The effect looks amazing and well worth the constant change of thread :)

Octagon B

Here is Spirit of the Southwest so far:

Octagons A & C Completed

I finally went back to working on Spirit of the Southwest this weekend. I've been hesitant to work on it because every time I do, I wake up the next day with pain in my right hand and arm. Luckily this didn't happen this time around.

First off, I finally finished stitching Octagons A and C. I haven't been wanting to work on this because of the section of diagonal stitches in the lower right corner (left for octagon C). Anchoring the beginning of the thread under the stitches was really hard.

Octagon A

I noticed as I was working that the stitches in Octagon C look better than the ones in A. I don't know if it's because of the direction of my stitching (I'm stitching this with the frame upside down) or just the thread shines differently (which is the whole point of this pattern). But I do see a difference and I really don't fell like redoing A. So as far as I'm concerned it's done.

Octagon C

I started on Octagon B. The first step is this Eiffel tower looking thing. It's a tent basket weave stitch. The pattern came with a diagram, but I didn't really understand it so I googled it. I found the steps strange, but followed them anyways.

Eiffel tower. The left side looks nicer than the right. weird!

It wasn't until I turned the canvas to finish off my thread that I realized why it was called a tent basket weave stitch. The steps that I found so strange were creating an actual basket weave pattern on the other side of the fabric. How cool is that!

Back of the Eiffel tower

Here is what it looks like so far. Sorry the picture doesn't look that nice. I took it twice and it still looks angled. This is because I'm still stitching with the canvas upside down. Once I'm done with Octagon B, I'll flip it back and take a better picture.

Break Needed

Originally this post was going to be called "I HATE French Knots" but after finishing them all and moving on to the next layer I forgot all about that.

On my last port, I mentioned that I stitched the Hungarian Criss Cross stitch with the wrong thread. I fixed that on Friday and started restitching it with the correct thread. Once I finished that, I took a look at the next step, and seeing French Knots, I promptly stopped for the day. I needed a fresh start since I had to do so many LOL.

Octagon A with French knot layer

I stitched the French Knots on both Octagons A and C, so I wouldn't have to waste time pulling the thread out twice.

Overall view

Once those were done, I was excited to move onto the next step and ended up stitching the entire day, which was a VERY bad idea. Because my stitches are so tight, I'm having a hard time passing the needle under the stitches when I'm starting a new thread. Which causes me to pull hard and straining my right hand. By the end of the night I was feeling some pain up to my elbow (not as bad as last time, then the pain extended to my shoulder). I feel better this morning, but I won't be stitching on Spirit of the Southwest for at least a week just in case.

Here's a picture of where Octagon A is now. Octagon C is at about the place except for the last layer in peach(?) thread.

Octagon A as it is now

Oops

I guess getting passed the Panache thread got me really excited to work on Spirit of the Southwest again. But I think this blunder is going to bring it down a notch. It's not a bad thing, it just means I'll be more careful and not jump in too quickly.

I started working on the first Octagon which is A, but since C is the same design but mirrored I decided to do them at the same time. Also to note I'm working with the design upside down to be able to reach the top Octagons more comfortably, which makes stitching a little confusing (I have to flip the charts upside down to match).

I'm now on the third step which is the Hungarian Criss Cross stitch. I got the thread out and sat down to plan out how I'm going to stitch this. I couldn't figure out from the instructions what directions I was supposed to be working in. So I googled it and found this nice diagram, but I was still not sure how the colors should come out since the thread is over-dyed. So after more googling, I found some pictures of what that Octagon should look like. Now in my defense I couldn't find any close up pictures of this design in my colorway but I thought I saw enough to understand what I should do and started.

One hour later after finishing one strand, I realize that not only did I use the WRONG thread, but that the diagram I found is the REVERSED Hungarian Criss Cross stitch. I have some ripping to do tonight.

Right thread is the top one

J Diamonds Completed

I've been putting off stitch in Spirit of the Southwest because of the Rainbow Gallery Panache thread. I finally decided this weekend to just sit down and stitch that first layer and be done with it. Five hours later was I still stitching and didn't stop until all the J Diamonds were finished.

J Diamonds completed

Here's a close up of the diamonds:

close up

Today, I was looking at the pictures I took and noticed a third one that I didn't take. Google Photos will sometimes take your pictures and add effects to them. I really like what they did to mine. The colors look really nice and I like the ombre effect :)