Double the Fun Crafts - Yvette's Petitpoint Blog

Beginning from the other side...

1/12/2023

The past two weeks have been not been conducive for my stitching, but I have been able to get some done. Once I got as far as I wished to working my way up from one end towards the middle, I decided to turn the rug around and begin working my way towards the middle from the other side.
This is possible because I am using Tent (sometimes called continental) stitch for the background. If I had been using Basketweave, which is stitched on the diagonal, I would not have been able to do this. If I did, there would be a line visible from the front of the rug where the two lines of basketweave met.
My main reason for choosing to turn the rug is that the pattern is repeated on both ends but has a section in the middle that is unique and does not repeat. I would rather make sure both sides are the same and reduce the risk of making a mistake when stitching past the center part.
This is truly my own choice and not a solid recommendation but it seems to make sense to

me at the moment. I have made mistakes in the middle before on another rug and had to take all of the middle stitching out to fix it because I noticed the other side of the rug wasn't lining up where it should. This was on my very first rug, the Butterfly Rug, the pattern for which can be found in my Free Pattern section here: Free Patterns. For that rug I stitched the background in Basketweave stitch because it had large areas with no motif, therefore, I couldn't do what I am doing now and had to fix it and continue in the direction I was going.
Hopefully, I will have more to show of my progress next week.

My first post of 2023

1/1/2023

As the first day of 2023 draws to a close for Cheryl, myself and our families, I wish to extend our heartfelt wishes for a wonderful new year to all of you. Every year brings challenges and the last few years have definitely been a challenge for the whole world. Hopefully, this year we can all begin to live a more peaceful, rewarding life and begin to heal from the huge challenges we all faced with Covid, among other issues felt around the world. May we learn to live in harmony with our neighbors and celebrate that which makes us all unique individuals.
Many of us make New Year's Resolutions and I hope that if you have done so this year, that you will achieve what you wish to do. I don't necessarily make resolutions, but I do reflect on the past year and develop plans I wish to achieve moving forward. Many of mine this year revolve around renovation projects for my house but I have lots of plans also for new rug patterns and new stitching projects I wish to start this year. We plan to attend a couple of miniature shows as vendors and I will be travelling to Chicago for the first time to attend the Bishop Show in April (not as a vendor but as an attendee). This has been a plan of mine for the last 3 years and this year I will finally be able to go! I am looking forward to it very much.
I will also be travelling to Castine, Maine this year in June as a Guild School Scholarship recipient! I was so excited to have been chosen for one of the Scholarships and can't wait to find out which class/classes I have gotten into.
Work continues on my Katrianna Rug and I will post a photo of that soon showing my progress. The holiday times are so busy that I haven't had as much time to stitch as I would have liked but now that things will be returning to normal this week, I hope to begin stitching again in earnest.
Until next time, stay safe and Happy Stitching!

The Year is Coming to a Close

12/31/2022

As this year nears completion, I am slowly working my way towards the middle of this rug. Both ends of the rug are the same, but the middle has a set of motifs that do not repeat.

I am now thinking that I may turn the rug around soon and begin working my way towards the middle from the other end. Then, once I reach the same place I have on this end, I can place the middle motifs without worrying that I have accidentally mis-counted.

One of the really nice things about an abstract flower design is that if you make a small mistake in counting, you can generally fudge it with the next motif and make it fit without having to take it all out. However, even though I know this, I am a bit of a perfectionist and like to have my stitching as perfect as I can, so I am taking out any mistakes and re-stitching the area. Luckily, I haven't had to do that very often.

Seasons Greetings - the work continues

12/28/2022

Whichever way you celebrate the holidays, I hope you had a good time and send my wishes for a Happy New year to everyone.
I have taken some extra time this holiday to work on my rug a little bit more. The motifs are slowly taking shape and the background is keeping pace with it.
I have noticed that I am now doing background until I can begin a motif, then I try to get the motif finished so that I know where the background goes. Then I don't need to count as much and can see where I am working much better. I do, however, still make sure that I don't carry any dark colors across an area that will be stitched with a lighter color.
It is very fun watching the design take shape and I am really enjoying this rug.
Until next time, stay safe and happy stitching!

December 10th, 2022

12/10/2022

Stitching has been a little slow this past week due to illness but I am feeling much better and the stitching is now progressing nicely.

As you can see, I have been stitching the rug's center, beginning at the bottom left corner. The only reason I begin here is that I am left-handed and like to start here.

At first, I tried to stitch some of the color so that it was easier to fill in the background but I quickly found that it was difficult to do this without carrying dark colors over an area to be stitched in a light color. Therefore, I switched to stitching the background first. I find if I stitch some of the background, then fill in the color of that area, I keep the interest going. It can be difficult at times to stay interested in a project if you leave all of the background until the end.

Due to the nature of this rug, it is not feasible to

save all of the background until the end so I am finding it very interesting. I love seeing the colors emerge as I go. The hardest part is trying to decide whether to stitch upwards towards the next element or horizontally, so I find I do both. I am trying to finish working with a strand of background thread in one go so that I do not mix it up with the lightest of the flower colors. This is working well for me as I do not end off the other threads when I finish a motif and can very easily mix up the two colors. I run it off to the side of the stitches somewhere out of the way until I need it again. This helps reduce the number of starts and endings of a thread. However, if there will be a large section of background that I need to cross to get to the next motif, I will finish off the thread rather than carry it that far so that the back looks neater.

I am looking forward to seeing how much I can finish next week!

The Border is Complete!

12/3/2022

This week has seen some great progress on the rug and I am happy to say that the border is now finished!

I have now begun stitching the center design of the rug, starting in the bottom left corner. The only reason I do this is because I am left-handed and like to start in a corner rather than in the actual middle of the rug. Keep in mind that there is no right or wrong way to start the design, only what works for you.

This design is more of a whimsical design and will not look like actual flowers and leaves in relation to color and I am looking forward to seeing this design progress as I stitch. So far, I am loving the muted peaches and greens in the design.

I will be posting an update each week on the rug as it progresses, so keep checking back to see how far I get each time.

Continuing the Border

11/26/2022

I have been making great progress on the border this past week. The third corner is now in place and I am approaching the fourth.

Once I reached the third corner I was able to continue the inner and outer single line of stitching on both the left side and the top to join them together. Now I have the outline of the sides in place and it will be very easy to know if I have made a mistake in the border.

Tip* One thing I have found is that the lightest peach color is very close to the background color and makes it a bit of a challenge to make sure I don't get them mixed up when parking the threads. I do not wish to change the colors as I love how they are turning out, so I decided to make sure I finished using a length of the palest peach when stitching with it and not parking it while I catch up with another color. To help me do this, I cut the thread 1/2 the length I usually cut it so that I may finish using

it in one go. As there isn't a lot of the palest peach, I also wait until I have a few flowers to fill in with that color before using it. This has helped me tremendously and I am making less errors now.

Tip* Another thing of note with this rug is that although it is easier to stitch the darker colors first, it is not the best way to do it. Dark colors show through the light colors if the light color is stitched over carried threads of darker colors. If you must stitch with a darker color first, make sure that no thread is carried across an empty space that will be filled in with a light color. It will take a bit more thread but always run the thread back through already stitched areas of darker color on the back before proceeding to a new area. If you have to cross an open area, park the thread (leave attached to your work and thread it into some holes away from the area you are working - this can be seen at the top of the photo above) then stitch the lighter color before picking up the thread again and crossing the area to get to the new dark area.

I am greatly looking forward to finishing the border and beginning the middle. Hopefully by next week...

Finished the Ruby-Green pillow

11/23/2022

This week I finished sewing my little Ruby-green pillow together. Pattern for this pillow may be found here: Ruby-Green. You may recall that this pillow was the one that had the least space between the edge of the pillow and the edge of the Christmas rug. I am happy to say my experiment worked beautifully and I now know that I can stitch small projects that close to the edge of a rug if I have some extra gauze. It is not for the faint-hearted though because there were very few rows that I had available to work with. It all paid off though because the little pillow went together very easily and I was able to get some great photos with which to write my tutorial. The tutorial will be coming soon and will be found in my Tutorial section. For now, I am just happy that it worked and I am now going back to stitching my Katrianna rug...

Finished hemming the Christmas Rug

11/17/2022

Today, I took my Christmas rug off the blocking board and completed the hemming of it. I was able to do the hemming very easily and the projects I stitched on the extra gauze around it are now cut off, ready for me to complete. I have been taking several pictures along the way so that I can write a new tutorial about the way I completed all of the projects on this piece of gauze.

Above, you will see a photo of the completed rug and two of it in place in my Santa's Cottage. The cottage is a 1/12th scale work-in-progress. Each year, I will be adding more to it until I am satisfied that it is complete. Are our miniature scenes ever truly complete though? I am hoping to stitch another chair (for Mrs. Claus) but also have many ideas to put into the cottage as well. I will see what I get done this year...

Bottom of Border Finished

11/15/2022

This week I was able to get the bottom of the border done and am now working my way up the side of the border. The stitching is going much easier than I expected so far and I have not made many mistakes that need to be frogged and re-stitched.
My plan with this rug is to complete the border then work the middle. It is a little easier than some of my rugs because there is only 1 border instead of several.
I am looking forward to seeing this border completed but it will most likely take me another week or two to do that.
My Christmas rug and various cushions are still blocking and should be finished with the blocking stage in a few more days. I thought it was done then found I could tweak just a little more to get some tiny imperfections out of the sides and make them even straighter. When it is finished blocking, my intention is to take detailed photos and write a tutorial on my finishing of a project with others stitched around it. Stay tuned for that later...

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