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Monday, February 21, 2011

A Castle, Some Greenery and A Rant

The 4th round (I can't believe that it's already half way through) was Theialin's My Lady's Chateau.

It arrived as this:


And I really really wanted to stitch the castle. But I've been stitching all my favourite parts on everyone's UFOs. Admittedly I don't think this is a bad thing, because the idea is to give these UFOs a nice boost. But...am I depriving someone further down the line the chance to stitch a part they have their eye on? Am I over thinking things???


So I stitched the castle and tons of boring greenery to make up for my self-induced guilt. Which leads to the rant:

This is a Dimensions chart, so multi-coloured symbols. That I can deal with. But a "E" next to "E"? and "r" next to "r"? And a light green heart next to a black heart? (There was also a blue heart, but thankfully in a different part of the chart). Aaarghh!!!

Actually, now that I look at it I got a crazy amount done! Maybe I should apply this "guilt" thing to my own works...

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean. Some charts are SO difficult to read because of the symbol choices. I'm running into that on my current piece. There is a bowtie looking symbol and it's hard to distinguish the symbols from each other and count correctly.

The work you did on the castle and bushes looks great.

Aurelia Eglantine said...

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean Re: the symbols. My current WIP is a Dimensions Gold Petite, and I mostly have 3 reps of the *same symbols* - one in red, one in black and one in blue. It's a little confusing at first, especially when, say, the red E is next to the blue E (argh!). After working with it for a while you get used to it ;)

As far as the UFO stitching goes - your castle looks awesome! I don't see anything wrong with stitching whatever appeals to you. If you try to stitch an element you're not keen on, your interest is not going to be there and your stitching will not progress as fast, or at least that's the way it works for me.

Vonna Pfeiffer said...

the UFO RR shall be gorgeous upon completion....but I agree with your rant. Totally awful are the charting on the kitted charts....and if you have to sort the floss yourself...IMPOSSIBLE!

Karen said...

OMg....you made great progress on this one! Looks like a lot of stitching.... I say stitch what you like and don't worry about the rest. Odds are they will get to stitch their favorite parts too at some point!

Denise said...

Wow have you been busy!

I hate patterns that repeat symbols! They are so hard to read!

Unknown said...

You got an amazing amount done and I am sure the owner will be very grateful!! Yes the charts can be horrible. I am working on a BAP kit that may take the rest of my life. But, it is the guilt thing that is keeping me going as it is for my DGS - LOL!!

valerie said...

Wow, great job on the UFORR...the castle and greenery looks great and adds so much to the piece. I hear you on the similar chart symbols...so frustrating!!

TammyK said...

Congrats on how much you got done on the RR :)

Lesleyanne said...

Lovely progress on the UFO. I think you should stitch on what appeals because you will stitch more and you are supposed to enjoy it. I agree with you about the charts. I am currently stitching a Vervaco where they have put Vervaco in red across the chart which makes the symbols really hard to read.

Annie said...

That looks so gorgeous! You really stitched a lot on that. And the castle may have been your favorite part, but you still had to get through a lot of difficult stitching with all those complicated color changes!

That UFO RR sounds like a great idea.

Carol said...

Wow! You really got a lot stitched, Blu! I detest stitching greenery like that--so many color changes, but, in the end who will ever know if you got one green mixed up with another!! Love the castle--and I'll bet that wasn't easy to stitch either :)

Rhona said...

You stitched so much.....it looks great!
I totally agree with you about the chart symbols, drives me crazy!!

Jo said...

I hate similar symbols in the same area. TW's Fantasy Triptych had a few in the trees.

Amazing work on the castle - I think you far and away did enough stitching to remove any guilt there!!

Lainey said...

Wow great work Blu the castle looks wonderful!

♥ Nia said...

Huge huge progress!!
Looks fantastic :D

Joysze said...

Wow..... you've gotten loads done!!! It looks great, Blu. I think you were over thinking things, and should stitch whatever portion you fancy. ;)

Oh... I hear you on those closely related symbols. They drive me nuts too!!!

Chris said...

Hi

I see you are following my blog so I thought I'd look you up and wow what a lot of stitching you've done.. And a UFO RR appeals to me what a great way to get those pesky down the bottom of my basket UFOs completed. And you are right, some symbols are hard to differenciate. I enlarge the chart and use my magnifing glass as well and still get confused, so rant on I am with you!

Happy days and happy stitchy wishes

Chris

Rahenna said...

I usually like Dimensions charts, but that is some bad symbol placement! I look forward to working on this... and don't worry, I'm happy to work on any part of it, so never feel guilty about what you're stitching! I love RRs. :)

Kalu V said...

ive had my eye on this kit for quite a while ... and many others from dimensions but im still too scared to give them a go ...
i know what you mean about the multicolored and repeated symbols on charts ..thats one of the reasons why i havent kept working on my noahs sub it just confuses me more and i feel like i spend more time deciphering than stitching

but GREAT job on the castle it looks amazing

Lynn said...

You've made an incredible amount of progress on this!! I would never be able to do this for a friend unless it was something I would stitch myself. If the piece didn't interest me, I could never stitch on it. This is a wonderful thing you are doing.

Ziggyeor said...

Love the progress!

I hate that on charts. A lot of the calendar a day pages are like that or they choose a really annoying symbol to fill the background.

I did a baby sampler once that didn't have that many colors but used S and s so my shells at first were an ugly grey color so I looked back at the picture and saw I used the wrong color. For a chart with that few colors you think they could have avoided using capital and lower case.

Parsley said...

What a beautiful piece!

Margaret said...

Great work. My mother did this picture some years ago (with the same comments about the symbols) and it is now framed and hangs above my piano. A friend ahs laid claim to it so pencilled on the back in Mother's very own writing is "for Kazumi after my death" - hope you get to keep your own work!!

Jennifer said...

Who's to say what someone else's favorite part will be in a chart? Might as well stitch what you like - someone else may LIKE stitching the boring green parts or whatever. You never know.

I've found with some of these charts with bad symbol placement that a pack of colored pencils works wonders. I make a copy of the chart (color copy if it's the red and black), then pick a colored pencil and color in all the symbols of a color before I start stitching. As I stitch, I only have to focus on the color I picked and it makes it SO much easier to work in blocks of different colors.