BFF Month 1.3 Stitching

Here's the third stitchery motif for Month 1 of Rosalie Quinlan's Best Friends Forever:

The only issue I've had so far with these patterns has been the gummy ink that they are printed with. It is very hard to stitch through. My solution has been to pick a side of the line and stick with it. For the most part, I've found that stitching on the outside of any curves is best, because the thread has a tendency to roll inwards and cover the line.

I've been stitching all the half pinwheel flowers to the outside of the line as well, which makes them a bit larger. So far, though, I still think they are pretty cute!

The fourth (and last) motif for this month is the teapot. I am chain stitching almost the whole thing, so it has been slow going. I'm hoping it will be done next week, but no promises!

This week I am linking once again to WIP Wednesday (which starts late Tuesday, if you are wondering) at The Needle and Thread Network.

Related Posts

BFF Month 1.2

BFF Month 1.1

BFF Month 1.2 Stitching

Here's the next finished motif from Month 1 of Rosalie Quinlan's Best Friends Forever. I have already shown this while it was in progress, where I discussed the flowers, leaves and bird. The lettering is back stitch, done with two strands of floss. By breaking the back stitch down into two steps, instead of just one step worked from the front, I have finally managed to get it to be fairly consistent.

I am happy with it, anyway! The third one, the umbrella, is not far behind. The teapot will need a few more days. Onwards!

BFF Month 1.1 Stitching Finished!

Here's my first completed stitchery for Rosalie Quinlan's BOM, Best Friends Forever:

If you are familiar with the pattern, you can see I have made some variations. I am sticking with my Northern Cardinal colouration for the birds. This time I was able to include the brown female as well as the red male. Aren't their coral beaks pretty?

I have also decided to keep those small leaves on the stems open, rather than closing them in with satin stitch. I like the feathery, ferny effect this gives them:

These were back stitched with four strands of floss to balance them with the stems.

For the flowers I stuck with the half pinwheel petals that I showed you previously. This is a crazy quilting stitch that would normally be used as a seam treatment. It is sewn continuously, so it goes quickly:

I also used blanket stitch pinwheels on the round flowers:

I tried at least four variations on this flower before I was happy with it. I am sorry I didn't take photos of the rejects, sometimes it is interesting to see what didn't work too.

Finally, I want to show how I handled all those little crosses. Wretched things! I don't think they add anything to the design, and they're a time consuming pain in the neck. I elected to stitch them all in a very light blue, DMC 828, and try to blend them out as much as possible:

You can see that I couched down the centre of each cross. I'm hoping that this will prevent them from snagging when the quilt is used. It also gave me a little more thread on the back to work with when I tied each and every one of them off. After a while I did get into a rhythm with them. Good thing, because it looks like they appear on almost all the motifs!

So, one down, 31 to go. Hopefully the rest of Month 1 won't be far behind! I'm linking this post up with WIP Wednesday #104 at The Needle and Thread Network. Check out some of the other great blogs there!