Gryff: AKA Coontastic Gryffindor Update 25 May 2020

[karen4bells]

Fantastic update on this one!!! Love it!!

[SteveM]

Hopefully having a completed section of his tail will help motivate you through page 5 and down to more of his tail. It goes almost without saying that your stitching looks excellent and I enjoy seeing your progress.

[richardandtracy]

I am enjoying doing this one.
Thanks for all your comments.

I shall continue this column downwards until finished. There is enough of the main subject not to make me want to jump about.

Regards,

Richard

[Allyn]

I am so glad to see Gryff again. It's coming along wonderfully, Richard. Excellent work.

[vanessanjf]

You are doing an amazing job

[richardandtracy]

Thanks, that means a lot coming from two of the most ambitious stitchers I know of.

Regards,

Richard.

[Squirrel]

Another lovely update on this interesting design.

[lavenderbee]

A wonderful update on this Richard. Great that the stripes are beginning to show. Look forward to next update, they're always great

[Carole]

Lovely to see Gryff again. Brilliant progress

[mysterystitcher]

I am sad you had to lose your cat so early, but I am glad you're able to stitch that picture. You have made quite a progress. I wish I could say the same about my stitching, but I've been knitting up a storm recently. Well, once I get to my knitting goal I have set for myself, I think I will leave the needles aside and grab the stitching needle again.

[Lulu22]

Great update, the colour blends are perfect too Gryff is looking awesome

[richardandtracy]

Just packing Gryff away until August, and thought I'd update everyone on the progress:

Continuing with sheet 5.

I discovered I had taken the wrong blend pair from the thread card for some of the darker snow, and done about 50 stitches in the wrong colour. Unfortunately they were individual stitches over a large area (about 3/4" square), and it was not possible to pick them out from the surrounding stitches. Fortunately the correct & incorrect blends shared one thread colour, and the second colours were next to each other in the swatch, so I discovered that stitching tightly over the incorrect stitches worked and the correct colour appeared. Now I can't tell which were the ones I stitched over.

Regards,

Richard

[wendywombat]

easy to do with blends...I've done it so often. At least now you've re stitched and, lets face it, you've got a very detailed design there and no one will know! And you say you can't find the error either!

to Gryff for a while. I look forward to your next WIP!

[rcperryls]

I'm sad to see Gryff leaving us, even if its for a while, but certainly understand the need to switch. He is coming along beautifully and I'm glad that you were able to make the correction you needed to. Since you can't find the "fixed" stitches, I'd say that it is back to being perfect and one of the most beautiful pieces I've seen. See you in a month Gryff!

Carole

[SteveM]

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I accidentally grabbed the wrong blend too on my Ionian Mission and put in maybe 100 stitches of it. Thankfully it was the last colour I had stitched and was mostly in one big block so it wasn't too hard to rip out. You're in good company.

[fccs]

Gryff looks fantastic! You're doing a beautiful job on him - no surprise there. I'm sad to see him go away for awhile, but I know he'll be back - and I know in the meantime, you'll be sharing more of your artistry with us, so I'm okay.

[stitchnsew]

Beautiful stitching!! In my own thread regarding my Bridal Bouquet, you had wondered how washing/ironing the opalescent fabric would go. It went great. I washed it in lukewarm water with a couple drops of dish washing liquid , rinsed well with cool water, and laid it flat to dry. When the unstitched fabric was dry, and the stitched area was just barely, barely damp, I got impatient and decided to start ironing.The unstitched fabric had stayed a little wrinkley, so I ironed it, from both sides, (after testing in a scrap piece) on the perm press setting without steam and it looked pretty good. Ultimately, I did not even use any kind of cloth between the iron and the project , just direct ironing. No melting or scorching of the opalescent threads. Then the stretching with the framing made it completely flat. The fabric was more durable than I thought it was going to be. Good luck, happy stitching. I did find that that fabric wore at the floss a little more. I had to shorten my lengths by a bit from my usual lengths.

[Serinde]

Gryff is coming along a treat. Come August, you'll make great headway once more.

[richardandtracy]

Thank you all for the kind comments.
The picture is coming on nicely and I am still astonished to see the image appear from the collection of very strange colours. The snow on this page is a very dark grey and it really doesn't seem right until you see the whole picture.

Stitchnsew, thanks, you have put my mind at rest - not that ironing is going to be a problem for a couple of years!

Regards,

Richard.

[mysterystitcher]

I am sure it is not any easy picture to stitch or look at later for the reasons you have told us about. I wish you all the best with the stitching, though.