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Sunday, January 07, 2007

A Happy Wiggle

A long way from a happy dance on this one, but I must give myself just a little pat on the back.

I fell in love with this piece in 1992. Even that long ago the chart was too small for me to work comfortably, so I enlarged the chart and cut it into manageable pieces. After several weeks of working two threads on Aida 11 ( if I was going to do all those stitches, this was going to be a BIG piece) I realized I was going to hate the finished product because the coverage was too sketchy. So, I (gulp) trashed the piece, bought some 14 ct. fiddler and started again, this time working with three threads. Tonight I finished the first section of the chart that I had cut apart! I have a couple of challenges when I continue. Over the years of on-again-off-again work on this two corners of the chart disappeared, and somehow, somewhere along the line I managed to lose part of one row. But, once I get the next sections going I should be able to figure out from the original what goes in the corners and then to fill in the missing stitches of the mystery row.

The last few days were pretty frustrating - filling in dozens of half and quarter stitchers here and there. My least favorite part of any chart. I decided that unless it's critical (like the dolly's cheeks or the teddy bear's paw) I'm not doing all those partials. In the meantime, I think I will pick up something easier for the rest of this week to give my eyes (and my nervous system) a little bit of a rest before moving onto the next section.

While I was still focused on this, though, I did pick the next section and do a half-dozen anchor stitches so I know where I am. The next section will finish out Santa's sack and the upper right corner and border.

1 comment:

Dineke said...

That Santa part looks good. Well done. Sorry to read about the chart difficulties.