Finer Points of Unpicking

OR ...

Frogging Woes

I had to do a some unpicking yesterday. Thos of you who cross stitch a lot will recognise frogging as unpicking because you 'rippit, rippit, rippit' out.

But actually while I was unpicking I was thinking I do it in two different ways and one is most certainly not ripping.

Here's the green I had to unpick;

I decided the outside green was far too dark to go with the rest of the piece. I thought long and hard about leaving it and then made the decision to just take the time to do it right.

As you can see the stitching is already touching other colours. What you can't see is how the thread laces through some of the other colours at the back. So instead of cutting each stitch (which I consider 'unpicking' I thought it best to 'unstitch' instead.

The way I see it, when you unpick, you cut the threads on each stitch and then pull them out in short lengths. When you 'unstitch' you pull the thread out in the recverse order to how you stitch it. I find this to be a much more gentle way to remove unwanted stitches, especially if you a) wnat to use the thread again, b) have other stitches around the area to be careful about not unpulling, or c) are undoing an area that won't be restitched as you have counted incorrectly.

I didn't want to reuse the dark green thread, so I was still able to cut it into shorter lengths as I unstitched it. If I do want to reuse the thread (usually if I've counted wrong), I'm very careful about how I pull the thread out. The I'll spereate the threads again before I reuse it.

 Here's the area after I unstitched the dark green. You can just see that the holes of the aida aren't pulled open or damaged in any way;

And here is the area re-stitched with a lighter green. I'm much happier with the result, and I hope you agree it blends better;

And lastly here's the area with back stitch nearly finished. The more subtle blend looks more like fabric and less like blobs of colour;

In case you are wondering, the item I was working on is a country angel which I hope to sell to Homespun magazine as a quilted wall hanging.
The toatl time of un doing and restitching took about 1 and a half hours, well worth it to get a better result.

I hope you've enjoyed my blog about unpicking ... I thought I might as well get something out of the process. :)
Jennidee

Good Morning

Hello there lovely followers (and interested visitors),
This morning I'm working on my next design which is the Peacock Princess. She will be stitched on the same sparkly fabric as the Butterfly Princess (which is called Peacock fantasy and produced by Stitches and spice - go check them out)
http://www.pantheon.com.au/stitches/index.html
You need to look in the spice blends section for Peacock fantasy fabric, but she has so many gorgeous fabrics for you to choose from.

ANYWAY;

Peacock Princess is progressing nicely. After two hours of design she is about a third done. Then I get to stitch. YAY.

It's going to take me forever to make a 12 design collection. But I hope it will be well worth it.

Just One Piece Left

Just letting you know there is only one piece of hand dyed aida fabric left; pictured below.

It's 14 count and about 19.5cm by 25cm.
Price is $15 plus postage (it worked out at just $1.20 to an Australian address) and you also receive the Moonlight Fairy chart.

More Progress

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. It was reports time at school which means more after hours work. But it's all done now.

I've made progress on the 'L' for Lisa.

This photo is quite drak as I took it early this morning with my flash. I'm actually quite happy with the colours now. As I come down to the bottom of the 'L' the colours lighten considerably and make give an overall impression of blending colours.

I must say I 'll glad when it's done. I've used three strands in 18 count aida which I've now decided is too thick (and pretty cumberson to work with). But I aint starting again or unpicking!!!

When it's finished I plan to work on some smaller pieces for magazines to keep the cheques coming in. There is a good chance I'll be leaving teaching next year to focus on my designing full time. I've been quite stressed by teaching this year. So doing smaller projects for more magazines should give my husband a sense of ease with a steady flow of income.

Though the larger projects will always be my first love and I'll certainly be working on them in between the 'bread and butter' stuff.

Until next time,
happy stitching.