Honeymoon Portrait Framed 1 October 2015

[richardandtracy]

Onto a new project. It's a photo of my wife taken on honeymoon in 1991, and is probably the only 'good' photo I have taken in my life (and even then it's not great - in photography terms I have 'Negative Midas syndrome', where gold turns to base metal as I photograph it). I took the photo in Yosemite, on a gorgeous sunny day in April, with the snow reflecting light everywhere, however the pine forest that was the backdrop was almost entirely black, so the only edits I did to the photo were to delete the few bright flecks visible in the woodland.

This is not a cross stitch picture per se, it's a tent stitch picture. It's 28ct black Joblean Evenweave (0.9mm stitch size), a total of 44060 stitches, 118 different colours and a final picture size of 16"W x 11"H. There are two threads per stitch (2 over 1 tent on 28ct). Hopefully it'll be finished before the end of 2015. Here's the plan page cross reference image:


I started on 3 November 2014 before receiving all the colours (6 colours are on back order) and started on page 10 of the plan. There are 56 different colours required in the 358 stitches of page 10. I tried the 'Parking' method to cope with the huge number of colours in a small area, but ended up driving myself demented with up to 30 needles on the go at the same time. So I reverted to using one colour at a time, and everything settled down a bit so I was able to make reasonable progress. I finished page 10 on 8 November having achieved a paltry 71 stitches per day (there are 4 stitches missing from colours I've not yet received). Started page 16 yesterday and did maybe 150 stitches in 1.5 hrs. The plan pages are 77 x 96 stitches, but due to the small stitch size only cover an area 2.5 x 3.5".

So the progress so far: lower lip & part of the boss' chin (edited to put in a less over exposed photo):


Regards,

Richard.

[Allyn]

I know this has been challenging you, but I also know you can do it. It's going to be fantastic.

[rcperryls]

Great start! I think this is going to be stunning. I am looking forward to lots of updates!

Carole

[karen4bells]

I hope your threads arrive soon!!! Great start on a very special project!!

[Nicola McKay]

Great start on a beautiful picture. Looking forward to seeing this one grow

[richardandtracy]

I will say:
If I suddenly drop out of the forum for no apparent reason, think the worst. The boss will have found a problem in the picture and terminated me!

Regards,

Richard

[fccs]

I will say:
If I suddenly drop out of the forum for no apparent reason, think the worst. The boss will have found a problem in the picture and terminated me!

Regards,

Richard

This is going to be fantastic. Great start!

[Rose]

This is going to be amazing!!!!! I am sure no termination will be needed!!!!!

[richardandtracy]

It's heading towards the 2 week point since the last update so I thought I'd inflict another picture on everyone:



I am still awaiting some threads, 6 colours (which were despatched yesterday), and have completed as much as I can on plan pages 10, 16 and 22, so have started on page 9, filling in the nose and upper cheeks. Chart pages 3, 8, 15 & 21 are all marked out around the area I'm working on.



Doing tent stitching seems quite fast in comparison to cross stitching, however the size of the stitches is so small that coverage is miniscule. I have completed 1845 stitches on pages 10,16 & 22, and probably another 500 on page 9. Consequently I've been averaging around 150-160 per day since I started, which means the hourly rate is heading towards 200 stitches/hr in the time I've had to sit down & do it (not too long, as it's heading towards Christmas and I have a lot of pen stuff to do). I am most impressed, as the plan is confetti heavy due to the dithering I used. Doing cross country is causing a thick mat to develop on the back, but the relatively open weave of this 28ct Joblean is not causing me problems with stitches being split apart when doing infill stitches in the dithered areas.

As a first foray into high counts, this is surprisingly pleasant to work with.

To make the counting relatively easy without doing full gridding, the stitches making the page borders are all 5 holes long, and start/stop at the 0, 5's and 10's grid lines on the chart. Otherwise I think I'd be spending too much time gridding & never get anywhere.

Regards,

Richard.

[LD282]

Great progress, it's going to look great!

Wat have you used to grid Richard? A strand of thread, sewing thread or girding guideline thread? I am curious as I want to grid my Miribilia project. I would normally use a water soluble pen but as I'm going to use a hand dyed fabric it's prob not a good idea.

[richardandtracy]

I just used a single strand of pink sewing thread which we wouldn't use for any other purpose.

Regards,

Richard.

[rcperryls]

Great update! Hope your threads come soon so we can see more progress!

Carole

[vanessanjf]

Such a great project

[Lulu22]

I admire anyone who work with black fabric! You've made a super start looking forward to your updates

[Oriettait]

Great progress! I am looking forward to more updates!

[richardandtracy]

Sorry, no photo at the moment, but I got the 6 colours I was missing through the post last week, and having finished chart pages 10, 16 & 22, I am absolutely, totally and utterly gobsmacked. I do hope that when I take the next progress photo you'll be able to see what I can.

I really never knew it was possible to get such smooth shading with threads.
No, I'll re-phrase. I never even imagined it was possible to get such smooth shading with pictures made with threads.

If the rest of the picture is as beautifully detailed as the first three pages of the chart, then it will be a picture to cherish.

So, to those on the board who pushed & inspired me to go further than I dreamed was possible (particularly, but not limited to, Allyn & Needleandfork), I would like to I give you an enormous 'THANK YOU'.

Regards,

Richard.

[fccs]

Fabulous! Your excitement is contagious.

[Allyn]

Pictures! We want to see pictures! NeedleandFork calls it that "painterly" look. I like that term.

And thank you for the program and color picker! I used the color picker yesterday to find a blend to sub for a color that isn't carried at my local store. No way was I going to mail order a single skein of floss. When I found the perfect blend, I said aloud "Thank you, Richard!" I love the color picker. . . love it, love it.

[richardandtracy]

OK, OK. I'll see if I can take a reasonable photo tomorrow morning (it's dusk as I type, so even if I had it with me, the colours would be off). The problem is that with a black background the camera's auto white balance goes haywire and it's very difficult to get representative colours, and photo editing to tweak the colours is never too successful.

I am glad the colour picker works, that it's in use and that it's working. It's rare to ever get any feedback on programs.
I wrote a toolpath program for milling multi-start threads on a CNC mill last year, mentioned it on the 'Model Engineer Magazine' forum, and it appeared to cause not a ripple. Then, about 6 months ago I went to a subcontract machine shop where they did all sorts of stuff with CNC machines, and they particularly wanted to show off their 'fantastic new facility' for milling threads without putting the work on the CNC lathe. This new facility.. my toolpath program and a cutter imported from the US. Apparently the software tools that came with the mill were generally too difficult to use for simple threads and didn't do multi start threads at all, so they used my program instead. I was one happy bunny.

Regards,

Richard.

[richardandtracy]

As requested, a small (literally) update. The picture size is small to enable to overall shading to be seen.


I did have to do some photo editing to the washed out photo - Lightness (from Hue/Sat/Lightness) was tweaked by -12% and then Brightness (from Brightness/Contrast) by -5%.

Hope the photo shows why I'm so happy about the smooth shading, particularly on the underside of the chin.

Regards,

Richard