The Gifted Gorgeousness SAL is hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching! It's a yearly SAL with monthly check-ins, but thankfully Jo has provided a great drop-in option for slower stitchers like myself. Here is my first entry this year in the SAL:
Flower Series #2 - Rose / Rose Afghan Motif
Free Pattern from The Janlynn Corporation
The motif is part of six floral and foliage themed blocks intended for an afghan. This is my own brighter colour variation. The original colours are much more muted:
I started working on this little rose when I was home at Christmas, so I waslimited to the colours that I had with me, which were mostly festive. The beautiful blue 14 count Aida was a generous gift from a friend that I had intended for a night-sky ornament, and I think all complimentary designs are, in a way, a gift to the stitcher :)
The 6" pink Hoop-La is also a gift, as I bought it with holiday gift money from my family, and the two blues I used for the Forget-me-Not flowers were Anchor that I bought at the same time. Please excuse the green Painter's Tape - it's a great quick solution to keep the edges of the fabric from fraying :)
The design is actually brighter in person - I had a hard time getting it to photograph properly. Although it doesn't show up clearly, I really like the shading in the rose:
And I adore this cute little realistic rosebud:
I find that a lot of rosebuds aren't rendered in detail, and I like that this one looks ready to bloom :) This was a quick design to stitch, for the most part, but the Forget-me-Nots were a little confusing. The petals are all overlayered, but some of the edges were very square, so I added in three-quarter stitches here and there.
Although there are a lot of colour changes, most are in sections of three stitches or more, so I didn't mind so much even though it took quite a bit more time than I had first expected. It was fun to work on this, sitting in front of the lighted Christmas tree, putting in two or three small blocks of colour at a time in between festivities.
But even after I had the stitching completed, it didn't feel finished. Something was missing. So it languished in my travelling stitching tin until I decided to add a border. And this super simple border ended up being my favourite part!!!
To make the border, I just stitched large cross-stitches over two threads all the way around. It looked a little too casual, so I added Backstitches in the middle, which naturally made Algerian Stitches in the corners! Simple to stitch, and super fast too :)
The border is definitely something I will try again in the future. And I really like the Forget-me-Nots, even though the Backstitching sort of fades into the fabric. Overall, I'm pleased with this project, and I'll probably make it up into a padded ornament :)
In the meantime, I am still thinking about my Sampler of Samples! I know it's getting late in the game, as far as the year goes, but I want to take the time to do it right ;)
P.S. Rosey at Ishkabibble is generously hosting her first Giveaway, in a series of three! The second Giveaway, for a lovely little Mill Hill kit, is currently open until May 17th, so drop over and say hi :) I've entered for myself, because I love MH!
