That Other Hobby

As my husband would say "Which one is that??"

Ok, yeah, I have a few hobbies. Just a few. Not like a million or anything.

Here I mean cross-stitching. I haven't posted anything about it in a long time, though I have been working on a piece pretty constantly for the last month. I have to admit I was in a bit of a stitching slump at the end of the year last year, only working on small pieces with little commitment. But then the bug bit me again last month, and I picked up a piece I haven't worked on since maybe last summer. Maybe some of you are/have stitched it? It's called Floralie by Papillion Creations. This is mine so far:

This is a piece that feels like I'm either not making any progress on it at all, and then I step back and discover I actually have, or that I feel like I'm making lots of progress on it, and then I step back and discover I actually haven't. It's never one where I feel like "Oh, I'm making good progress", and I'm actually making good progress. It's odd that way.

I think the reason for the slow and not so slow progress is the fact that I'm working it in linen thread on linen fabric. Has anyone else tried this? This is a first for me. Usually I like either DMC (or some other cotton)on linen or silk on linen. Both are strong and smooth and even and I know what the tension is to get the right stitch. For this piece, though, I wanted it to look old, and though the hand-dyed cottons are nice, they are usually pretty vibrant and shiny. So I first thought about linen threads, and DMC. Their threads are nice, but the color pallet is limited in their linens, and I wasn't loving their greens, though I liked the blues. Then I discovered Olde Willow Threads, and they have lots of beautiful hand-dyed colors. I picked a blue, a green and a brown, and ordered some of each.

As it turns out, the blue was too light for the linen, and just got lost. So I still needed to use the DMC blue, which was fine, because I liked it. But I still liked the Olde Willow blue too, so I decided to use primarily the DMC blue, and to "throw in" the Olde Willow blue randomly here and there. That, coupled with the hand dyed green that changes color from light to dark, gave it a nice aged look.

Then there was a hinky in the works. I only ordered a little bit of the green and blue from Olde Willow. I was going to be ok with the amount of blue, but not the green. So I ordered more. Guess what?? They changed their color. The old green is a sagey-mossy green. The new green is a greeny-blue. Ugh. It's my own fault though, I didn't expect them to change the color that drastically. But since the whole thing is all different shades because of the hand-dyes, I just went through and picked out some of the "old" green sections and re-stitched them with the new green so they will blend.

That's taken a bit of time. Add to that the fact that linen rubbing on linen causes the linen (thread) to break, and I wind up working with very short lengths at a time, and not being able to use the tension I normally would. But it's coming along. I am sticking with it and I'm hoping to make a lot more progress and either finish it, or at least do a lot more before I put it away again. Really, I'm hoping to finish. When I make more progress, I'll definitely show you!