Celtic knots are finished...

 Finally!    

I don't know why, but my feet just drug as I thought about working on these cross stitched knots the last few weeks.  Days and sometimes weeks went by when I didn't even feel like picking them up for some reason.

I'm pleased with the stitching part, but I'm not sure how I feel about the finishing part.

Thinking they were a little too bland as plain pillows, I made a trip to Hobby Lobby to see if I could find a trim that might perk them up.  I didn't have any luck with the trim, but I did come home with some fabric for an upcoming project!  More on that another time.

Back at home, I remembered once upon a time I had bought a cord-making gadget.   Of course!  I had plenty of floss - I could make my own trim!  Fortunately, once I remembered I had it, I remembered exactly where I had put it when I unpacked my craft supplies three and a half years ago.

Following the instructions that came with the Kreinik Custom Corder, I made the first cord in the two green colors I'd stitched the first knot in.

In the picture, the trim is hardly noticeable.  In person, it's more obvious, but it's underwhelming.  Clearly, I didn't use enough strands of floss.   But did I want to make it over?  No I really did not.  At least not until I made thicker cording for the second pillow - to my mind, it made sense to experiment on the second unfinished pillow before ripping out what had been done on the first one. And I figured watching a few tutorials wasn't a bad idea, either.

Ok... that's better, but I wish I had just used one of the colors this time.  The light and dark gold twisted together is a little busy.  But did I want to make it over?  No. I really really did not.

It isn't that the Kreinik is exactly hard to use, but the printed instructions are too brief, and I didn't find it as easy to use as the tutorials made it appear to be.  It didn't help that every tutorial I watched added some slightly different technique.  I also now know I used too-long strands of floss and it became unwieldy.  I needed Hub to come and hold one end while I kept my end taut (thankfully, I have long arms) as I slid the Kreinik to the middle and let it drop - to twist the cord back on itself.  One of these days, when I'm under no pressure to finish a project, I will play around with it and perhaps get the hang of it more easily. 

For now, I'm happy to be finished with this project that took way too long for what it was.  Someday I may remake the cording on the green knot pillow, but for now I'm relieved to call it done.  

Chances are, I'll be perfectly fine with its imperfectness and never change it.

A short stitchy post...

 'Twas a busy week the last seven days - and mostly with good things.  But I'm relieved to see a number of unscheduled days for the week coming up.  With a week full of temps above 90, I have in mind to stay inside for much of it reading, stitching, and generally catching up on homemaking things... We'll see if it actually pans out that way.

Sometime in the past week or so I gave into temptation before I was finished with the first Celtic knot I had started, and began stitching another one.  

You can see (above) the shading I talked about in an earlier post.  I'm undecided at the moment on what floss color I'll use as an outline (or if I'll do any outline).  The instructions suggest using a metallic gold thread - which I have in my stash, but it is lighter than lightest cotton gold floss I'm using above.  I tend to think outlining in the darkest floss I'm using would look best.  

These knots are taking quite a bit longer than I thought they would, but maybe that's just because other things have needed doing.  I'm hoping I'll finish in time to include them in this year's round-up of my Year of Projects - which I think is next week.  

Next, I have this idea to start a sampler of embroidery stitches. Not a sampler to frame, necessarily, but a piece of cloth where I sample new-to-me embroidery stitches.  Sarah Homfray is an advocate of doing this.  I've been bingeing on this gal's videos lately.  If you have any interest in embroidery, I recommend her channel.

Celtic cross stitch...

I don't know how many posts this spring I've mentioned rain in, but another week has come and gone and we've gotten several more dousings.  A week or so ago, I finally did complete my garden planting (or, at least, I've decided I'm finished for now), so all the rain is very welcome from this point on.

With so much rain and resulting mosquitos, I've come inside earlier most evenings than I might otherwise, and I've found more opportunity to do some handcrafts. Wanting to stitch up a quick project to replace the May pillow that was in my mini-pillow display from last week, I went looking through some books for something that might fit the bill.

I was torn between some floral patterns in another book, and the Celtic knots in the book below that eldest son gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago:

Probably because I thought they'd be quicker makes, the knots won out and I've picked out two to stitch up on this very open-weaved linen fabric:  

I'm here to report that stitching an outline first does not make for quick stitching.  Perhaps especially on an image like this, one can't fudge when filling in later if a mistake has been made in the outline.  The need to do this perfectly meant almost as much time counting, recounting, and often recounting stitches again, as it took to actually stitch the outline.  It was exhausting, and like a kid with a new coloring book, I was so glad to be able to start filling in the design.

For the first knot design, I decided to stitch a dark-ish olive-colored outline, and fill in the two solid pieces with different shades and tints of the same olive color.

Only about half-way finished with this one, I'm really itching to stitch the second knot pattern I've picked out, as it has shading markings and will look more dimensional.  When I started the above knot (which did not have shaded markings in the pattern), I thought to self, "You can add the shading as you go. It's pretty obvious, afterall."  Well, shading with needle and floss turned out to be a huge headache without having plotted out ahead of time where to place the shading stitches.  I know... even looking at the picture above, it's pretty obvious where shading would go, but trying to place those stitches as I stitched (without a reference) was just too challenging for my brain.  So I gave up on that and started over.  At this point, I realize I should have stitched up the shaded pattern first, and I might have been more motivated to plot out the shading on this one before I started it.

But it's okay...  I've been watching Sarah Homfrey on YouTube and she mentions often, to keep stitching instead of ripping out and starting over.  One only learns and improves their stitches by making more stitches and moving forward.  (That's probably a paraphrase of what Sarah says exactly, but it's close.)  Of course, the over-thinker in me wants to argue that point.  I prefer to rip out and do over most mistakes I make no matter the craft, and I know I learn things in that process.  But I've decided to listen to Sarah and just keep stitching away with this.  We'll soon see how it turns out.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to resist other embroidery projects that Sarah's videos inspire me to want to jump into.  The urge to start another new thing is sooo strong.