Autumn Promise

I had such a lovely day on Saturday.  I was lucky enough to go on a one-day workshop with Judy Dixon, stitching one of her new designs.  Six hours of uninterrupted stitching (apart from a quick half an hour break for lunch!) - how great is that :-)

Looking back at it now though I think - how could I have stitched all that time and have so little progress to show for it??  Here's what I managed on the day:

I have though made quite good progress since - maybe we chatted too much on Saturday :-)  :-)  (why can't you get proper smilies on blogger, it really annoys me).  Anyway here's the latest update - I've completed Band 1 apart from the cutting and beads.

It's been really challenging. The YLI silk (peach) is very fine and I had to work hard at getting it to lie flat. I thought I was going to love the Pearsall's silk (green). It's beautifully glossy and well, silky but I found it really difficult to work with as it's also very springy. I tried using some Thread Heaven with it, but it took the sheen away so I had to persevere without.


The variegated Thread Gatherer Silk n' Colors was a joy to use. Judy Dixon had suggested we should iron each individual strand before using it as the floss is quite tightly wound. At the time I thought that sounded ridiculous, but I tried it and could hardly believe the difference. It's well worth the little extra time it takes to do - athough when my husband saw me do it he thought I had finally flipped!