Jo's Stitching 2024

[Serinde]

Agree that life is too short for some things. And any excuse to stitch is very welcome (especially your beautiful work).

That Dark Sky event sounds just perfect! Fingers crossed it stays clear where you are.

[Mabel Figworthy]

The Dark Sky event sounds wonderful! And agreed, I hate waste too but you also have to take into account what your time is worth.

[fccs]

I hope the sky stayed clear for you.

[Steam.Jo]

Disappointingly on Friday evening it became overcast before we got to the telescopes. It was still a good evening with a walk through the dark forest to each of the correctly spaced planets where we had a quick presentation of the specific planet with questions. The type of questions the kids came up were both enlightening and stretching.

I learnt that there is no point in having a telescope over 14" in the UK due to the atmospherical contaminates. I had been considering buying myself a 8" or 10" but having seen how huge and heavy they are I will be sticking with my 4" spotting scope for a while longer.

On with my stitching:



I finished filling in one of the wings and I am putting the outer border in place. I find this outside useful for checking that I have not miss counted any of the picture stitches .

Jo

[Mabel Figworthy]

Love the peacock feather effect!

[fccs]

Very pretty wings!!

[Steam.Jo]

Thank you ladies

I've been wearing out my John James 28 needles (they bend then crack at the bottom of the eye ) and had to order another 200



The second wing is completed and I need to decide where to go next

Jo

[Steam.Jo]

I decided to work down her dress:



Then got side tracked on to the leaves at the bottom as they were not as fiddly

Jo

[Serinde]

I'm amazed that anything in TW's designs aren't fiddly!

[Steam.Jo]

The leaves proved to have a number of stitches close together so that I could make a bit of progress. Then I started the flower she is sitting on



A couple of stitches in one colour then huge jumps to the next bit of the same colour

Needless to say I got side tracked again and worked on her dress. This must be the easiest of the four fairies dresses to do:



However having started a glass of Pimms I decided to do something easy so move on the the border. I think the pattern on either side of the chain link is going to make up for the ease of stitching the dress.

Why is it that the computer has a habit of spelling things wrong after I am half way down a glass of something

Jo

[fccs]

Computers are funny that way! . (And curious minds want to know what you mix with your Pimms.)

Your fairy is beautiful.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Computers and Pimms is a heady mix! The flower does look challenging will all that confetti but I'm sure it will look great because of it.

[Serinde]

Easy!? That border doesn't look easy to me, even without the Pimms!

[KittyZ]

I love the colors of your summer fairy, especially the blues of her dress and wings.
I am still impressed with how quickly you stitch these challenging fairies.

[Steam.Jo]

Thank you

I am fairly boring with my Pimms: 4 parts lemonade to one part Pimms. So a long drink rather than a quick means to get light headed. But I am always surprised just how quick alcohol effects me: I used to play Mario Cart on my WII and half a glass of wine would really impact my score and yet I was still legal to drive a car Having learnt that I have a self imposed 24 hour ban on alcohol before driving.

Onward with the border:



The green bit of the border is only using two different mixed thread colours. This is the easy bit. Each flower consist of 3 different split colours threads, plus a bead and there are two different coloured flowers

I have just scrolled down to add the green leaves at the bottom. I will probably treat myself to a bit more of the main picture rather than focusing on the little flowers as I can see them being as boring as the backstitching

Jo

[Nicola Main]

Such beautiful work Jo!

[Steam.Jo]

Thank you Nicola

I've started adding the backstitching on her dress:



It feels like I have weeks more work left on this piece but the weather seems to be on my side.

Jo

[Serinde]

Wow! This is going to be just stunning.

[Steam.Jo]

The Second big flower is underway:



With this flower I can get a number of stitches out of each thread colour pair rather than the odd one in the flower she is sitting.

Jo

[Mabel Figworthy]

She is getting on so well!