Hi Ho, Hi Ho...

I'm back to work tomorrow and wanted to share my progress on the Nimue fairy. Her wing is almost finished (one more color of backstitching.) Chiloe, I'm still working with my new scanner so the colors aren't showing quite right here. Like you, I used two over instead of one. This Aida is not quite so yellow as it is showing here. DMC color #3861 (first stripe in from where the body will be) is a kind of taupe-y brown with a slight lavender cast but not quite as lavender as is showing here. The other two stripes are primarily DMC color #3864 which is a much lighter step in the same colorway but comes across much less lavender, almost more yellow than is coming across here. There are orange highlights (DMC #407) that are popping more orange than this picture shows. If you click on the picture to the larger version, it is closer to the real thing. I'm hoping I can figure out all the settings to get the color right on these scans by the time I finish the body.

No, I didn't use the brown Mohair Marron that the design calls for. I'd never even heard of it so did a Google search for it and it appears to be a very French commodity (meaning all the sites where the words popped in my search were French sites.) There was a site that had a picture of the fiber and it seemed to be VERY fuzzy (long fibers off a central core fiber). When I first read "mohair" I thought it might give that spot the soft, velvety look of a real butterfly wing, but the fibers in the picture I saw were so long that I thought it might look more like a shag rug so I decided to give up the search.

Overall, I'm satisfied with how this is turning out, although I may not be so pleased with the dress. We'll see.

Chiloe asked about my blog titled "For Yumiko" so I thought I'd explain my other blogs. "Debi 101" will eventually be my list of lifetime goals. Travel and experiences, charts and patterns, WIPs and UFOs. Mostly just a place for me to go to remind myself that napping through football games on television is not a life. "Debi Stitches a Home" is intended to be the journal of the building of our retirement home in Utah, which is at a dead stop (and yes, there is a rant in that blog now ) because of our horrible American economy and housing mortgage disaster. "Debi Stitches a Family History" is where I put the occasional family story in hopes that someone out there will recognize a connection and share helpful information.

"For Yumiko" is a very special blog. Two years ago yesterday my older son married a wonderful woman from Japan. They met eight years ago when they were both college students in Fullerton, CA. They shared a house for a while in Fullerton, then in New York while my son finished university (even went through 9/11 together), but most of their relationship was maintained long-distance. My DIL became a fluent English speaker while she lived in the US, but the rest of her family speaks very little English and I speak even less Japanese. Yumiko is my DIL's mother, and she and I have been frustrated and more than a little sad that we cannot speak with each other. I can't even write a thank-you note when she sends a gift (which she very generously does from time to time). Then, after Thanksgiving, it dawned on me that maybe I could "speak" to her through photos in a simple blog. I post something, email DIL who emails her brother who opens it all up for their mother to read. (BTW, Yumiko is a fashion designer in Japan.) If anyone knows of a wonderful translator for Japanese/English I'd appreciate the reference. We've tried Babelfish and my DIL tells me the translation is dangerously garbled.

One of the highlights of this winter break has been having the extra time to spend here. I've enjoyed visiting new blogs and updating my posts here. Since my resolutions for 2008 include spending more time getting healthy with more (some?) exercise, better meal planning and preparation and more scheduled crafting time, I will not be lurking here at every opportunity so my posting will be sketchier. Please don't give up on me. I enjoy your visits!