Friday night and Saturday I worked on the brick chimney. The detail work on the bricks is tedious but, as is always the case, worth the effort. The small details do make a difference. I started on the foundation bricks this afternoon. It moves along more slowly than the chimney because of the stopping and starting caused by the wrought iron fence posts. It's hard to get a rhythm going.
I also finished the door with the exception of the hardware. The door stitched up quickly and was a nice change of pace from the detail of the bricks. The Haunted House door reminds me of my own front door. My door needs almost as much work as the one at the Haunted House - it's in need of some serious re-finishing.
I also stitched the cupola stone roof with the raised leaf on top (the roof area in front of the moon). The cupola was my initial attempt at raised stem stitch. It looks ok to me but not having used this stitch before, I don't know if it looks as it should. What do you think? Should the rows of raised stem be more tightly packed? I had some trouble with the raised leaf design. The last three or four stitches wanted to slide off the top if I put to much tension on the thread so I put very little tension on the top stitches so that they sort of stacked on top of each other. I hope that was the correct way to stitch it. The bas relief Celtic cross was fairly easy although it required two attempts at it to satisfy me. Hope I didn't waste too much thread trying to get these two features right.
Tonight, I may take a break from the bricks and do some easy stitching on the windows. I would love to hear how others are doing with their Haunted Houses.
Have a good week!
Melinda,
ReplyDeleteYour Haunted House is really coming along. All your stitching on it is perfect. I have only completed the first lesson on the house. Hope to get back to it after all my Christmas deadlines.
Your certainly are inspiring me to pick up the house again.
Linda
Sounds like you had a perfect weekend! Sigh...!
ReplyDeleteYour haunted house looks great!
Judy
Your cupola looks better than mine - nicely done. It was my first try at that stitch too. I am now working on the stone work around the front door from Kit #3 - it's very relaxing stitching. A nice break after all the raised stem stitch. Mine sure doesn't look as regular as Amy's, but I think it looks good enough for a haunted house!
ReplyDeleteNancy
Hi Nancy, Judy, and Linda - yes, it was a wonderfully stitchy weekend. I appreciate your kind comments on the Haunted House. Nancy, I am looking forward to that relaxing stitching around the front door. Have you finished the stone arches around the windows? I'm tempted to mix in a little bit of stitching from Kit 3 while I work on Kit 2. There seem to be some areas that are addressed in Kit 3 that would be easy stitching in areas that are already complete. Wish I could see pictures of your houses!
ReplyDeleteYes, Melinda, I'm finished with all the stone arches from Kit #2. I think your idea of mixing Kits 2 and 3 stitching is a good one. The arches seem to go on forever, so taking a break would be nice. It was helpful to watch Amy's video lesson on Raised Stem Stitch from her DVD; I only wish it had shown doing the stitch on a curve - that's what gave me trouble.
ReplyDeleteNancy
Nancy - I wish you could come sit with me while I stitch the arches. I am very unhappy with my first one that I worked on last night. It's coming out tonight. I put in a similar number of spokes on the arch as shown in the stitch guide but I am wondering if I need more. There seems to be a gap between each row of the arch that I really don't like. I don't think it has to do with tension so I wonder if more closely spaced spokes would solve the problem. Maybe I can take a picture of the "before" arch before I rip it out and then try a few more spokes on the next one to see if it makes a difference. If any of you have any tips that might help me out, I am open to all suggestions!
ReplyDelete