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After a fairly long stint on Gryff, I re-started Luz on 22 September and have made a little progress. It's coming up to the 'Thinking about Christmas' present season, so I've been making a few pens and made no progress at all last week.

I'm filling in the background around Luz's head at the moment, the light shading that's very hard to see even with a head torch... Here's the chart page cross reference image, and I'm still on page 3:



You can see the tip of the needle poking through the fabric in the top left of page 3, that's got the yellow background colour on it, and I'm 14 rows down from the top, having started at the top with the colour yesterday evening. The pink, grey & greens are complete, with only the light blue to follow in the top right corner of this page. It's nuts doing such sparse shading, but the effect is subtle and quite good. When I've completed all the light shading, I'll get onto the darker stuff just above Luz's head.

Just thinking about it, I am really pleased with this picture. Not sure whether I prefer this or Gryff. I really like both, otherwise I wouldn't have started either of them.

I've ordered some red 15lb monofilament fishing line (0.3mm diameter) and when it arrives I have a feeling I'll start gridding with it - as I get towards the middle of a page I end up spending an inordinate time counting from the edge to find the next stitch, especially if I get distracted & forget where the needle is.

Regards,

Richard

easy to get distracted I would imagine with all those pastel colours and confetti.
Excellent work, well done

Such a beautiful project and you are making fantastic progress on it!! I'm in awe!!

karen4bells wrote:Such a beautiful project and you are making fantastic progress on it!! I'm in awe!!

You took the words right out of my keyboard.

Richard, your work is absolutely stunning! Now I'm off to look at your pens...

Your work is fantastic I can't wait to see more

Brilliant update. All those different shades, it must take an awful lot of concentration but well worth the effort. It will be fantastic when finished. Well done on what you've achieved so far on this. Look forward to seeing it again as well as your cat one

Stunning I'm looking forward to more updates

You have far more patience than I do. This is going to be just stunning with all the detail

Agree with everyone else. This is fantastic and I am looking forward to more updates (even if I do miss Gryff.)

Carole

Stunning work. and kudos to you for focussing on all the subtle background before doing more of the "main feature"

The month is up, and I'm going back to Gryff. However, here's a peek at the progress as of 22 October 2016 when I put the project away:
I have finished page 3 and have returned to filling in the tedious background of Page 8. Once again, here's the page map:


And the actual progress:


Sorry about the slightly odd colours. I am using a 'new' camera, and haven't got the settings all sorted yet. It is the same as my old camera, but at the moment has the default settings. I like my old camera so much that I thought it'd be a good idea to get a spare just in case it breaks down, and having seen a slightly newer one for sale at £9.99 inc postage & 2 Gb memory card, how could I resist? Like all lithium battery operated stuff, the battery needs regular exercise to keep it functional, which is why I'm using it now.

The intermittent red line is an attempt at using red fishing line as gridding. It works, but at 15lb breaking strength, it's rather too thick, need 2lb line really. However on the plus side, it is stiff enough to go through the holes without a needle. It pulls out well and doesn't get sewn through like normal sewing thread when it's used for gridding.

I have done maybe 20000 of the 110730 stitches in the project, so am somewhat behind schedule for a 4 year completion. Ah well. I hope the interest of doing more of the figure will help things along later.

Regards,

Richard.

The new camera gives a new colour perspective on this. I'm still amazed how you can do all those pale shades and still retain a degree of sanity!! and good humour!

Looking forward to seeing Gryff again!

Excellent progress and hope your new camera continues to work out well!

You are making wonderful progress

Agree with all of the above! Looking good!

Carole

Beautiful!!!!!

Thanks for your comments, greatly appreciated.
Next page will be page 11, so should have something of interest almost immediately. The background is, I admit, not great to do.

Regards,

Richard.

That is completely amazing! Your stitches are neat and tidy too

Great progress! I don't envy you the background but it looks so good.

Great work! And the background to who she is is very interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing the detail in her face - it will look amazing!