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Serinde wrote:The quatrefoil is lovely. Those variegated threads really give the leaves depth, and the blue/purple veins are wonderful.

Absolutely agree!!!

Carole

I've chosen the fabric and colours for Wool Hengest - now just waiting for my hoop to arrive!

What a delightful selection of colours. These will bring out the best in Hengist the Unicorn!

The design and the fabric, together with the wools are full of promises... I am looking forward to your next update

That will be very interesting and colourful to watch come into being under your oh so busy needle. Well chosen MAbel.

I like Hengest with his larger spots! (having read your Blog about it!) He's going to be Very Handsome!

What make of Crewel Wool is that...looks very interesting!

I may well keep the larger spots for the silk version as well - he looks less fussy like this

The wool is Heathway Milano crewel wool which I get from Pearsall's; they used to do the most glorious silks as well, but alas, no more . Their wool is lovely though, and it comes in 9-shade colour sets - I mean they'll have a colour called Apple Green and it'll come in 9 shades from very light to very dark, ideal!

It's more expensive than Appleton's, but because most of my stuff is small that doesn't really matter so much; if you were doing a bedspread or even a big fire screen the added cost might make it a bit less attractive as an option...

Thanks, Mabel.
I see what you mean about their shade sets. All the colours of green and those in between!

BTW I also saw on FOF that you'd fallen over on the ice patch. I hope the bruises won't impede your Sewing Extravaganza!!

The leg's doing better (I fell on my hip) but the arm unfortunately still feels rather stiff and sore . We were out last night and again tonight so I couldn't stitch anyway, and I hope that'll give it enough of a rest. Then with a bit of luck my hoop arrives tomorrow, I can bind it and hoop up Hengest, and get a few stitches in!

The Unicorn sketch looks so cute and the colours are absolutely yummy.

Sorry to read you have had a fall, I hope your arm gets better soon

OK, it isn't much, but it's a start - just a shame it's white on natural so not particularly visible....

I wanted to work the body in long vertical lines starting from the middle and voiding the spots, then after two lines realised that once I'd placed the central line, I could just fill in smaller parts from there instead of going all the way from bottom to top every time *sigh*

Incidentally it is quite difficult to keep the voided spots round when doing vertical lines around/across them - but I hope to fudge that when I fill in the spots with spiralled split stitch

Hello Hengist

This is one I will watch with interest, its a great start Mabel.

WOW that sure is different Mabel and I will enjoy watching it come to life under your busy needle. Incidentally do you ever 'wear out' a needle or 3?

An excellent start.

He's very relaxing - just one stitch, and basically painting by numbers

Beautiful start!!

Carole

Progress pictures on this one will either have to be far apart, or not show a lot of progress - filling a space with nothing but small split stitches isn't quick, especially when being "helped" by a pussycat who decides that a little assistant pawing at the hoop from below and trying to eat the wool is just what a stitcher needs!
On the other hand, frequent pics are going to keep me motivated, so I'll put them up and you can just ignore them until something interesting happens instead of just bits of white
(Sorry for the bad lighting - I took it last thing at night under my spotlight)

Well it IS progress, and very neatly stitched too!

did you use the spotlight lighting so as Not to pick out the inevitable Lexi Hairs?

She was only trying to 'help'

This is such neat stitching! It does look like a challenging project. I do love Hengist's expression

I think it is lovely progress between the type of stitching you are doing and the assistance you are getting! Clearly wool thread is much more appealing than any plain old floss or even silk thread would be. And like Wendy said you have the specialty thread do deal with as well. (Lexi hair)

Carole