I'll be moving to a new place. New blog will be here
http://elenaz.wordpress.com/

Finished Quaker Style by Anagram. Stitched on 28ct Lugana hand dyed by me, 1x1, using Vikki Clayton's silks. Ethereal Ice as a main color and Sue Purple 6109 as a complimentary color.

Decided to make a sample of my Fugue Blue silk
28ct Jobelan 1x1

Another small finish

More color test than a finish. Anywy I love those small hearts from Elisa Tortonesi. I plan to make a panel of them.

Another small one

Here is a new small finish. Couldn't take a decent picture though. All are either too dark or too bright.
Freebie, 28ct Lugana, dyed myself, over 1, full cross. Threads - HFD silk - Yonder Blue 2215

Hand dyed again

This is my first attempt for pink colors, fabric itself looks good, but not very suitable for stitching, because there a lot of spots.


In order to reduce spotty look I had re-dyed one piece again using tea, a bit better, but still very variegated. Don't want to bother with this one anymore though, so I'll either use it as it is or discard it. Both were just test samples anyway. But I really like the color possibilities of this particular plant I used. Will make more attempts later, when my apartment's re-construction will be over.

It seems that with all those repairing in my apartment I've forgot to add all my small pieces in silk that I've stitched recently. Well, here they are

Here is another small finish in HDF silks. Stitched 1x1 on 28ct Lugana which I dyed myself.
Top picture threads used - Fools Gold and Terra Potta - 4319, Hieroglyph - Rum Scullion 4341


I feel that I'm absolutely addicted to silk now. Now I'm stitching another design in silks, using Ethereal Ice. The Chart is by Anagram. Will add some pictures later

Well, I've completely forgotten about my blog, as so many things happened in the last few weeks. first of all I've discovered all this new wonderful world of stitching silks. That opened another dimension for me and that is stitching things like samplers, that I had never done before. I've been totally absorbed by all those things lately. Well, among others there loomed a question about the kind of fabrics I'm going to use now. Before I usually stitched on any kind of 25, 28ct and didn't care much about color, as it all had been covered by a background. But now everything changed, so the question of colors came forward.

Well, I've ordered a few colored samples also a few pieces of linen, which I had never tried before. But they all hadn't arrived yet. Well, in the meantime I came across a fact that many people dye their fabrics themselves and of course I couldn't just pass this info by. The momenet I saw those beautiful samples I immediately decided to do that too.
And now, after reading heaps of various info re fabrics hand dying I came up with the following pieces. Well, they are just my first attempts, so of course nothing spectacular, but I'm quite satisfied with the results and will certainly continue with my experiments. More so, that I just love doing it!
Well, here is the first one, I really like that color. I also love those spots on the face side, but I realize that for stitching back would probably be better, as it presents a more uniform surface.

here is the back


On the next one I put a spot on the face, so I'd probably have to use the back. At first I was completely unsatisfied by it and wanted to redo it (as with many others), but when I started to put floss against it, I really liked how they looked. So, I'll probably leave it as it is.
Back



Here are several others I made together with the first one. I'm using only natural plants for dyeing together with the special components for setting (I don't know English words for any of them). So the colors there will always be close to natural ones like brown, rusty, green-olive, etc. here I used different plants, but put all 3of them in the same brew. I wanted to see different shades of yellow here.

Here is Honeysuckle by J Wall. Not a real rotation, just wanted some change from Ivy, which I'm stitching now. Got a bit tired of a b&W stuff and wanted some color for a change

Here is the Tree Frog by Jo Lynch. Color is slightly distorted. The real cross stitch has much warmer shades. The fabric is more yellow, but I just don't want to bother with photos anymore, as it is only a wip picture. With luck it will be better next time. I really like the colors on this one. Now I'm switching to Ivy. Just need some change from the bright colors.

I'm making some repairements in my apartment, so no time for anything. Nonetheless, managed to finish current rotation. Paris Opera Ceiling by Marc Chagall. Off to Tree Frog by Jo Lynch now. Will start it tomorrow probably, now I have to gather myself for the thing that I hate most, preparing the fabric. Well, no way to avoid it...
Here is Opera Ceiling

Finally received my hand-dyed fabric from Enchanted. I planned to use it for The Key, but it looks a bit too grey for it. It would have been perfect for Ivy which has a lot of white in it, but it is already half done on ordinary Antique White. I think it would look great for something like Rainforest Mandala by Lindhurst which I'm thinking about all the time. Though I absolutely don't need any more new starts now, those mandalas call very strong to me. Don't know, I also like several of her zodiac mandalas, maybe they will be charted in time too. My favourites are Leo (as it is my sign), Pisces, Capricorn and Virgo and all the ones that don't have too much blue in them. Well, don't know, maybe some time... Practically no spare time now, not for stitching, not for blogs or for anything, I'm still stitching Paris Opera Ceiling now, when I'll finish current 10rows, I'll switch to Tree Frog by Jo Lynch.

Haven't much time to stitch latel. However, managed to finish current part of the rotation. Crimson Glamor by Kuik. Off to Paris Opera Ceiling now.

Here is my current wip of Violent Mashrooms. Finished all the upper pages. Now 10 more rows on Crimson Glamour and this part of the rotation will be over.

Didn't really have much time to stitch those days, but have managed to finish current 10 rows on Crimson Glamour. back to Violet Mashrooms now.

I'm so sad now. I just went to Vikki Clayton's site and saw there all the silks already made as a packet for a frog. The cost is 75$ though. Too expensive for me actually. Why someone mentioned silk I wonder, I never had any plans to do it in silk, but after I saw a ready package I don't know. Very tempting, but still I think I'll have to stick to DMC at the moment. Never knew silks were that expensive. How much the big project will cost then?

Tried to imagine how The Frog will look like on yellow

The quality is not good, as I don't have a normal graphic programm yet. Had to do it in Windows paint, using the brush to remove white areas. But I just wanted a general view, so wasn't too thorough on it. Well, here is the idea. I really like it. I would have preferred a mixture of yellow and blue, but I guess it would be asking too much from a hand-dyed.

Practically hadn't been stitching in the last 2 days. First of all my neighbours who live in an apartment above me had done something about their pipes or just left the tap open, I don't know, and drowned all their flat with water. Water of course leaked into my apartment through the ceiling and had been dripping all over my kitchen. I have been up all night running with pots and jags, trying to catch it, so it will not leak below on the next floor. The ceiling is ruined of course, as well as the part of the wall.
Besides with this new blog I've discovered the absolutely knew world of scrapbooking (read about it in some other blog) and had been downloading all those scrpabook kits and papers like mad the last 2 days. Never new that such a thing existed at all. I can't say that I'm really interested in making scrapbooks for arranging photos, as I'm not much of a photo fan, but I absolutely love those rich backgrounds and elements. I've been trying to use them for formatting my blog pages and find it rather fascinating. Unfortunately I don't know much about HTML, but maybe I'll try to learn a bit and buy myself some graphic programm. I've a feeling it could become another hobby for me. I had been always fascinated by richly textured and colourful backgrounds, but never knew they were available for downloads. Well, love this new thing. Unfortunately, that takes time away from stitching, so my progress can really slow down. I'm still stitching Crimson Glamour today, but haven't done much on her. maybe will have another update in a couple of days.

After some thinking I've decided to order 2 yellow colored hand dyed fabrics for Jo Lynch's charts, especially the Frog. I wanted at first to stitch it on white, but changed my mind. So, I'll have to wait for the fabric to arrive. I chose the following colors lemon Jobelan 28ct and primrose Lugana 25ct . Not quite sure about 28ct Jobelan, I'm afraid the cross stitch would probably turn out to be too small on that size.

News from the stitching front

Good news for me, first charts from Jo Lynch appeared(charted by HAED). she is one of my favourite artists so far.

Raven Blue

Unicorn

Tree Frog

PK Poppies

Elephant

I've already bought Frog and will start it as soon as I finish current rotation, Glamour and Mashrooms by Kuik.

Another good news for me are that Mystic Stitch is going to start download options on some of their files in November. So I don't have to wait for this mail anymore. Usually, by the time I received the charts from them, I've already lost interest and wanted something else. Well, will keep fingers crossed.

Instead of stitching had been trying all day to figure out how to change layout of the blog. Finally learned how to do backgrounds. I would much prefer some easier editors though. Hate to learn all this HTML stuff.

So, here is my new blog. haven't decided on the content yet. It will be mostly stitching and a bit more of everything I guess.

Well, the first day. Had been stitching all day yesterday. The idea was to stitch Crimson Glamour by Kuik, but in the end I got tired of all this monochromatic pink, so decided to mix it up with Violet Mashrooms. Here is my progress on both charts. Today I'll probably switch to Crimson Glamour again