This past week I've finally been able to get back to designing and stitching new designs for next year. I know it times we all get bogged down with a design or project and just don't want to work on it for a while. Well, that happened to me with the Bargello Pear design I was working on. I have no doubt I will get back to it in the spring, but time was a-wasting and no stitching was getting done! So, I took Funky Rose to the framers...and that perked me up! Hope we chose the right mat colors, frame, etc. December 1st is when it is promised and I'll post a photo of the framed project.
Back on April 29th, in an entry titled Planning New Designs, I posted a sketch and an array of threads as Palette #1 for an upcoming design. The photos that follow are the followup to that. The design has been revised from the original sketch....with several sketches in between. Also, while the palette is basically the same colors, the balance of colors has changed and there is some change in thread textures. See Palette #2 above.
I'm planning to finish up stitching the smaller blue/green square tonight and I have posted a photo to show, in general, how I pull a large group of threads out of the, even larger, palette, to select threads for the individual areas. In this case.....all squares of varying sizes.
The image I am trying to re-create in this design is really a collage of images from the countries surrounding the Mediterranean. So many of the patterns we take for granted today are centuries old as seen in brickwork, tiles, on fountains, in museums and libraries, churches, minarets, etc., etc. I have planned out what squares are in the foreground, middle ground, and background and have researched the stitches, but how it all comes together has not been planned out to a great degree. Each square will be created based on its surroundings.
Stay tuned. It should be back to normal postings after this weekend....my last teaching trip away until early February.