Thursday, April 22, 2010

Stars: Introducing Vivian Leigh


I need a little break before I start on the lion himself in my Stuart Plaid Lion ornament, so I've been working on the last block in the top row of the Stars piece.  This is called Vivian Leigh.  Just to remind you, my colors are:  violet (A), black (B), terracotta (C), and copper metallic (D).

The photo above shows the first four areas out of the seven that make up this quilt block.  The center square is worked first in C4 (Flair F527), then covered with straight lines using B7 (Cascade House's overdyed silk perle 9325). That whole area is topped by A6 (Trebizond silk perle 111), which seems to have pulled the straight lines out of true. I've been trying to straighten them, but so far without success.  Any ideas?

The second step surrounds the center square with a border of long armed cross stitch using B7 again.  Since my B7 is an overdyed silk perle, I got very pretty color variation as I worked each side.  The third step is to add pale terracotta kite-shaped areas around the perimeter of the center square using C5, my Impressions 3064.  Once these are all in, the fourth step is to top these shapes with a crescent stitch using just two plies of B8 (J.L. Walsh's silk/wool blend #1320).  I stopped after doing just one as it was difficult to see where the crescent went at night.  You may not have trouble if your underlying thread and the canvas color aren't as similar as mine are.  I just couldn't see easily where to put things.  I'll finish up this step late this afternoon when it is sunny.

And maybe I should start saving up for a new light/magnifier!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

2 comments:

NCPat said...

This is going to be very nice!

The Chilly Hollow Needlepoint Adventure said...

Glad you like Vivian, Pat. So far I think she looks pretty bland but the last few steps are going to add a lot to this block.