Two more boxes

I finished filling in the lower right diagonal darning pattern. As a reminder, the white is Pearl Cotton and the silver is Kreinik. I then did the heart darning pattern under the beaded box to your left. We did a lot more stitching and a lot less laughing tonight! We were all still talking a lot, but more focused on progress too!

In this heat

We all need a fan, so I went back to work on Lady Carolyn's fan! I finished the last blade's Pavilions stitches and got to work on the Forget me nots. I am using the Mediterranean in Waterlilies again. I still need to fill in the centers, the little white flowers and the leaves before I start adding the beads to this project. But....the end is in sight!

Petal One

I worked on the Oriental Poppies for a while. I started by putting in the darkest red rows of long and short stitch on the back petal of the top poppy. I then added the next lighter color and am working my way down to the base of the petal. I added the third color and also added in the darkest lines at the very top as well.

More Pavillions

I did all the Pavilions stitches around the perimeter of the final blade to create the oval for the last batch of flowers.  A lot of these had to be compensated to fit, but it is worth the look.  You can see that there are few more of these to fill in, but not many.

Another blade

I finished the background on the second blade from the right, so that completes that blade.  I used the pearl cotton and did the same Waffle stitch in the area as the other two center ones.  I then resumed using six strands of cotton floss to create the Pavilion stitches on the last blade on the right. 

Strange Looking Picture

I finished putting in all the Gloriana Silk Ribbon loops with about 4 inches of ribbon left.  I think Terry might have less packed posies but I like these.  I then put in French knots with two strands of Splendor, but not in all of the flowers.  I laid down the needle, unclamped the frame and held it up for DH to admire and lavish praise.  "It is really nice but a strange looking picture".  I started laughing and gently reminded him that this was going to be finished into a box and was one of my Christmas presents from him!  I am still laughing on this one!  I promise to start the finishing on this box this weekend.  I have the frame and Terry included a DVD with instructions--how cool is that?

Tuesday stitching

Tonight at stitching group I worked on the Nancy Cucci piece.  I started by doing the first pass on the box on the bottom row, second in from the right.  First, the DMC pearl cotton is darned in and then the Kreinik #8 went in.  There is more on this pattern, but I skipped up to the center beaded boxes and started putting in the beads in the third box from the left, alternating pearl beads with crystal ones.  this box is about half done.  Pretty good progress for all the laughing we did tonight.  We somehow got started talking about weddings and bridesmaids dresses we had worn and it was downhill from there!  LOL