Friday, August 13, 2010

An Angel for Twig


I am currently working on an angel chart for this month's round robin. I had intended to stitch a lovely Prairie Schooler angel with blackwork wings but it is oriented horizontally and all the spaces in this particular piece are oriented vertically and are exactly the same size. I tend to make my spaces different in size and orientation when I grid out a piece combining many designs. It adds more interest to the piece and allows the participants in a round robin a bit more leeway in choosing a design. Though all the stitching on this particular piece is top-notch, the choice of designs is so divergent [canine angels, a little girl angel, a countrified angel, mere wings with a quote about angels] and the size of each design so different [some filling the space and some not at all] ... that any sense of a unifying theme is pretty much lost. It is probably best that I am not stitching the Prairie Schooler angel. It would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

Unable to stitch what I had chosen, I went to one of my go-to sites for when I need a complimentary chart quickly, Kreinik's website. My other go-to site is Rainbow Gallery's website. I found a vaguely Jim Shore-ish angel meant to be stitched in silk mori which I changed out to DMC as per the round robin owner's preference. I'll have to shorten the very long skirt by a few rows to fit the space but otherwise it works well. And the style doesn't clash quite so much with what is already stitched as the Prairie Schooler angel would have. It just clashes terribly with my design sense: lots of rose tones and bordering on cute. And, to make matters worse, I shall have to stitch on it the better part of today in the forlorn hope of getting it done in time to get it to the post office before 11am tomorrow. Given the post-operative prohibition re driving, I have to rely on my husband who will be available to run errands on Saturday and then, not again till next Thursday. Since the target mailing date is the 15th [Sunday] that leaves me in a bit of a bind.

For the most part, I have enjoyed being a part of this round robin. However, in the unlikely event I ever join another, I'll probably do it through one of those boards that set up groups based on compatible tastes. It was interesting to be part of a random group and to stitch designs I would never have chosen otherwise ... but once was enough.

1 comment:

Dani - tkdchick said...

Some RR's work out beatufiully and others just don't. I always try to pick a piece that suits what others have done. I hate it when people pick something so out of place or stitch this tiny thing when clearly they've been given a certain amount of space.

RRs can be beautiful or a letdown, that's the risk.