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Sorry no idea what they could be for but he is looking more and more gorgeous every time I see him I hate metallic threads and always try to avoid them if possible xxx

I love the close up photos. Can really see what a lovely job of stitching you are doing. I am sure that some time away from the metallic is a good break. I love the effect they have on a design, but my experience is that it does slow things down a bit.

Carole

I quite like it without the lattice background. My guess would be a window.

Are you going to skip the latticework? I often omit “extras” that I think take away from the main design. I love your dragon more each time I see him.

Thank you for your kind comments.

The Latticework has already started: the golden stitches on the dragon's body are in the diamond pattern and form part of it.

I have been reading further into Chinese Lattice work and think that TW put a lot more into this piece than she let on in the write up on her website. Trying to reduce a long conference/research paper that I have been reading through into something rather shorter to digest:

Window lattice is an integral part of China's traditional culture: In the distant Zhou Dynasty, simple carving patterns symbolizing people's prayers began to appear on the window lattice. By the time of the Ming and Qing Dynasties the art of window lattice work were various complex and complicated patterns and ornaments of trees and flowers, landscape, historical figures, and auspicious characters, and the ornaments were crisscrossed. The pattern of traditional window lattice uses pictograph, understanding, homophony, metaphor, analogy, symbol and other techniques to express moral meaning, reflecting the wishes and blessings of people's hearts.

I've already mentioned about Chinese believing that dragons bring abundance, prosperity and good fortune, so it would seem a suitable ornamentation for a piece of Latticework. If you notice the outside frame shape is not the classic begonia shape but more of a cloud, which is also appropriate as Celestial Dragons fly up in the Clouds

Jo

Oh, very interesting to learn the latticework is not just ornamental. Thanks for sharing your research.

Its been too hot to go outside so I have been working on my ducklings:



There is not much to go now before I start the backstitching but I am not sure if I will finish it today as I will be at my Tai Chi class this morning.

You can tell I am (st)itching to start my Fall Fairy

Jo

Love this.

Absolutely adorable and can't wait to see your start on Fall Fairy

Lovely Mum is done:



I will take it along on Friday for our sewing group to see Only after that can I consider mounting it up.

I then had to do a bit of penance for doing cross stitch rather than any chores and having found a piece of 28 count evenweave, I edged it, found the centre and mounted it onto the frame Lovely Mum has just been taken off. This will be for the 1952 Vincent Black Shadow cross stitch which my friend asked me to do for him that the pattern arrived for the other day without any threads or material (the missing threads are now on order )

Which meant I was allowed to start:



In the kit they give you a size 24 needle. I never stitch with 24s, I prefer 26s and while the chart only uses full stitches I will be using quarter and half stitches on my piece so instead of using a tapestry needle I am using a Chenille, which has a sharp point for going through the centre of the tough part of the Aida. Yes I hate Aida but I am keeping that as it is fully covered by stitches and only we will ever know .

Having done the first couple of stitches I was thinking something is wrong Then I realised I had not added a piece of pipe lagging over the bottom roller to protect the material and give me something to rest on

We are off

Jo

I love the Duck and her ducklings! They are so precious. And I'm happy for you that you had no choice but to begin the Fall Fairy. I'm looking forward to seeing this one progress!

As to stitching instead of doing chores my sister gave me a t-shirt one year that says

"Pro-cross-tin-ate
verb: To cross stitch when you could be doing house work

I find myself procrosstinating more often than not

Carole

Awwwwww those ducklings are sooooo cute

The ducklings are gorgeous.

mags wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:20 pm The ducklings are gorgeous.

Yes!!!

Lovely Mum is beautiful Jo and those duckling fuzzbutts are so cute! I always use size 26 needles too and I can't wait to see more of Fall Fairy

Thank you Ladies

Guilt has set in this morning so I have put my Fall Fairy out of the way - I was tripping over the stand with the chart on it and could not see past it for when my birdies come visiting so I can throw them some food. Last night I was encouraged to get on with the Motorcycle piece - my friend is visiting on Sunday to see the progress and I have been told his Birthday is at the end of the month

In the meantime I am back inside working on my Dragon while it is too hot to be outside

Jo

A bit more progress on my dragon:



The weather has been very hot for the last week so I have been inside working on this. Normally of an evening I would be stitching in my conservatory but the temperature out there has remained hot well into the evening. I mentioned I have stopped myself working on the Fall Fairy and have been working on the motorcycle for my friend:



This piece is full of half stitches on the vertical and horizontal direction (TW tends to do half stitches on the diagonal) so it really needs the evenweave and a magnifier to be able to see what I am doing.

Jo

More complicated than it looks. And it's a good thing you have the Turbo Needles™!

At our Friday sewing group I like to do something simple while we yak I cannot remember but I think I might have mentioned on the acquisition thread I brought a cheap cross stitch tea cosy set with the intentions of making some new pan lid handles out of it. At the top is my old one is showing its well loved age and below it is the new one which I have just finished stitching up:



Which goes on here:



I will have to keep this one a bit cleaner than the last

Jo

Lovely progress on the dragon, there is going to be a lot of work on the motorbike and your pan handle is very pretty - yes perhaps not a very sensible colour for it but hey it will wash