Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29

As I continue finishing up the raised stitches in the bands of this sampler I also realized the reasons I had skipped stitching other parts within some of the incomplete bands... endless repetition, boring selection of stitches and or color, strange design motifs... now I had to revisit them and make decisions.

One of the stitchers on Nicola's blog was trying to figure out the trellis stitch and was thinking of abandoning the stitch and using satin stich instead. With some emails & encouragement she is at present trying to tackle it.  I was at the same time dealing with this band that had not appealed to me from a design and color perspective.  I decided to change some of the colors and stitches and incorporate the trellis stitch and its variations within this band. 

Here are some of the detailed pictures:


This is the way I had left the band  - I started putting in the satin and bullion stitches in gold as charted.... 



Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle

 and then decided to place a variation of the trellis stitch ( spiral trellis ) as the center of the flower. You can also see the cream colored flowers in various renditions in these pictures - they are barely visible from afar and that was another thing that I had to address.


Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle

 This strange motif below which reminded me sometimes of fish or walrus, sometimes of monkeys or dogs,  was charted for bullions.  I decided to place trellis stich into this area and then decided to pad it (stuff it) just to see the effect.  I used a remnant of the blue thread and balled it up ( example of small amount on the right of the picture )



Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle

 Trellis stitch steps - not a hard stitch - mostly a matter of controlling the location of the thread and tension at all times :


Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle



Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle



Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle

 This is the way I chose to finish this band - still a strange one but at least it was more fun to stitch.
The area on the left is more like it was charted - the area on the right is my interpretation of all trellis stitch variations.


Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle

 Trellis stitch - regular version - base of acorns; decided to stitch the white flowers in gold with a white and gold bullion center, added queen/rococo stitch instead of just a cross stitch in taupe in the monkey/dog/fish - strange motif :


Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle

Spiral trellis - center of flower - see pinhead below
Padded trellis - top of acorn - see stiletto below


Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle

Elizabeth Harborne - Day 29
The Song of my Needle

 I had finished this last Sunday but just did not get the chance to post until tonight...