Trio of Dragons

Another

Another finish!

Legends of the Dragons was my 2010 New Year start. It's now midway through 2012 and I've finally finished it! It's a three-parter with each dragon designed by a different designer. All three are now out of the business (although I believe Jennifer of DD still occasionally puts stuff out for retreats).
Magic by Dragon Dreams was the first one finished. I remember being very gung-ho at that point. I was going to stitch a dragon a month and finish the whole thing in 4 months. Ah, those were the days... I finished the border next. I was going to use an overdyed since I didn't want to tackle the border (it's all TW), but I never managed to find one I liked that was in my budget. So I eventually sucked it up and stitched it as charted. I'm glad I did that. And then it was Teresa's Wisdom. This is where I got stalled. I can't remember why, but I probably wasn't in the right mindset for a TW. That was a long hiatus. I didn't touch it during all of 2011. And then one day I just had to finish it. And the last one is Majesty by Black Swan Designs. Looking at my numbers this took the shortest time to stitch, which is surprising because I thought it would have been Magic. I was a bit nervous about the lettering because it's over one. The last time I had to stitch a small over one part in a larger design it didn't turn out too well. Too much puckering. But this turned out excellently. I owe everything to my Q-snap. And the fact that I stitched all the lettering over two days.

Title	Legends of the Dragons
Designers	Black Swan Designs, Dragon Dreams, TWDesignworks
Start date	January 1, 2010
Finish date	July 4, 2012
Total time	102.5 hours
Fabric	28 ct antique white lugana
Floss	As charted

Closer to the End

Jumaji June was excellent. Legends of Dragons went from this: To this:
But then I ran out of one of the Kreiniks, so it's on pause until I get to the LNS sometime next week.

Seeing Wisdom

This one's a blast from the past. My last post about Legends of Dragons is from back in 2010(!)
And now:

I was in the mood for a billion-and-one blends. I just zoomed through this and has a blast finishing it off.

Google Reader has been acting very strange lately. It doesn't load posts as they are posted. Instead at the end of a day I get all the posts from the previous day. It's very strange and I'm pretty sure that some blogs just don't show up on it any more...

Borders and other joys

Weather here has been lousy lately. Warmish one day and freezing the next. Ah good old Winnipeg winters...
I have to mention the giant ice patch along my walk to the bus stop. Honestly, there's this one spot where there's always a giant icy patch about 3 feet long. It snowed last night, so I figured the patch would be covered and I could walk on it, but no. It was icy, while the area around it was powder! I have a secret suspicion that someone runs out and throws a bucket of water to ice it up, and cackles as unwary pedestrians crack their skulls!


Legends of Dragons
28ct antique white Lugana
I finished Magic and started on the border. I'm not very fond of them, but they add so much...

I had thought that I might use an overdyed but couldn't find one I liked, so I just went with what's charted. It is a very nice border after all. However it has 2 primary yellows, one secondary and a last one for a few random stitches. I tried stitching just one colour but kept getting lost, so I grabbed another needle and now I'm alternating between the two primary yellows. Stitch one, then stitch the other. This way the second one can "check" the first one.

It worked but I was still frogging. I don't like to highlight even though I use working copies.. Mostly because I move on and then forget where I am relative to the already highlighted parts. Finally I came up with this low tech solution which is working quite well:

One giant paperclip that slides along as I go! I am quite pleased with myself over this solution!

I don't usually order charts via my LNS, but I decided to give it a try. Ordered one last month and asked her yesterday when I could expect it. Apparently they don't have enough to warrant an order from that supplier so they're waiting until the order is a good size. ETA: mid March. I ordered in mid January. If I'd know that it would've taken that long I'd have done it online and paid the shipping anyway. Guess I'll stick to the net for my charts and go to the LNS for fabric and beads.

The Magic Begins

This was another New Year Start for a SAL on the TW Yuku board. "Legends of Dragons" a collaboration by Dragon Dreams, TWDesignworks, and Black Swan. The SAL is a tribute since all three are no longer designing.

Progress as of 11 hours:



Originally I wanted to stitch the hardest parts first. The plan was: border->wisdom->majesty->magic. However it was taking me a bit too long to figure out where to start the border. I have "issues" starting. If I try to start somewhere other than the middle, my margins always, always end up wonky. So I just gave up and started in the middle.

I usually save all the backstitching for end because I like to see the effect it has on the picture. However this has Teresa's work, and I know better than to leave the backstitching for the end. (A lesson learnt when I was stitching Dragon Rider.) So I'm going to finish each dragon including backstitch before I go on.

The new plan is: magic->border->wisdom->majesty->over 1 text. So it'll be in 5 parts, with one part a month.

I am leaning towards just picking a gold/yellow overdye for the border instead of the multiple floss changes that all Teresa's borders seem to be. Don't get me wrong, I adore her work, but sometimes it just drives me crazy having to change needles every 5 seconds!