Peacock Band Sampler - bead time!

Sooo it's been a while since I posted about Peacock Band Sampler, but I've been focusing on it for a while and all the stitching is done! Now it just needs beads. Lots and lots of beads...

Here are the bottommost bands. Five are already 100% complete with beads!

And a little closeup to show some details. I especially love the swirl pattern in the second to last band, in the largest diamond shapes.

I also haven't rated any bands after the central one so I'll finish that up now. :)

Band 9 (light blue) - 5/10 rating - It's a thin band so not a lot of room to do much with it, but this one is pretty bland. The stitching is more sparse than in other thin bands (I'm sure it has a ton of beads) which makes it look kind of sad. But it was fast to stitch!

Band 10 (blue) - 4/10 rating - Also fast to stitch but very plain compared to other wide bands with only cross stitches and the satin stitched hearts. Not much wow to it.

Band 11 (teal, green-blue) - 7/10 rating - Another simple one but it feels more impactful with the denser stitching and strong colors. This was charted with two beads between each of the central rhodes stitches but it was waaay too much and looked tacky.

Band 12 (evergreen) - 8/10 rating - This looked pretty sparse until the beads were added, and then it was elevated to wow level. A bit too much cross stitching vs specialty stitching for my taste but I do think it looks pretty good now that it's complete. :)

Band 13 (medium green) - 1/10 rating - No. I absolutely hated this. First of all, it was charted with the outer stitches touching the inner ones, which made it blend into a formless blob. I separated the motifs by one thread and that helped a lot. The inner stitch is a horrible, densely packed, and tedious nightmare. It looks good up close (decent woven effect) but from a distance it's still a formless blob. At least the outer stitches aren't being dragged into the blob because of the change I made, though.

Band 14 (light green) - 10/10 rating - So happy to have this band I LOVED after a tough one! The swirly Jessica triangle diamonds are so beautiful, and the contrast between the cross stitch outlines and the specialty stitches is perfect. Some of the rhodes stitches were charted in the same color as the cross stitch but I chose to do all the specialty stitches in the darker color. The beads really make this one pop!

Band 15 (yellow) - 8/10 rating - Fun and satisfying! I reversed the light and dark colors for the sheaf stitches to get a more 'golden wheat' sort of effect. I also did the top legs of the rice stitches in two different colors to give the dark color more of a chance to get used in the band. Again, I like the dense look of this narrow band. It stands out more and makes the color feel strong. :)

So that's all! I'll be working my way back up the pattern and adding sooo many beads. And leaving some off if it's just too much. Those Jessica triangles in band 14 were supposed to have beads in the middle but I like the look of the uninterrupted thread swirl. And they're so soft to pet!

Tomatoes finish & May/June goals

Finished up Tomatoes a few days ago and here it is!

I made a few tiny changes as always. First, the tomatoes all the way on the right side were all the same color, but I changed two of them to the lighter red for some more variety. And there was some sort of green thing under the tomato cage to the right of the house. I guess it was meant to be a topiary? It honestly looked like nothing. So I copied one of the flower pots with a young plant from the bottom middle to put under the tomato cage instead.

I also goofed and stitched the tomato juice bottle one stitch too far to the right, which threw off a lot of other things but shhh... You don't really notice it unless you look closely. Honestly the table and basket above the juice and jarred tomatoes looks better one stitch to the right. It was way too close to the tomato cage originally. So I fixed it lol. :3

And finally, the goals. For May, I had:

• add one band to Peacock Band Sampler
• finish Raven Queen's dress
• stitch half of Tomatoes
• probably no buy of any stitching stuff

I... actually don't remember for the first two. I didn't take a lot of pictures this month (so I can't check my progress) and I was distracted by a lot of negative real life things. I think I made a lot of progress on the band sampler but my sense of time has been a bit messed up. Tomatoes obviously got more than half done in May (though I finished up in the first few days of June), and I did buy a few things that I've had on my wishlist for a while. But everything in the past 2-3 weeks is really fuzzy...

Anyway, new goals.

• finish current band on Peacock Band Sampler
• visible progress on Raven Queen
• visible progress on a Chatelaine WIP
• probably no buy of any stitching stuff

I've had fun with the small projects and I'm feeling the itch to work on a Chatelaine again. Not sure which one but probably Chinese Garden Mandala as that's the closest to a finish. I think I'll keep it in my monthly goals for a while as it would be nice to actually finish this beast!

Tomatoes - update

Tomatoes are growing! :)

I'd say this is more than halfway done already! I cropped the picture to show about how big it will be once finished. Just one more tall motif on the right side and that will be the entire boundary of the pattern.

It's been a lot of fun with all the cute tomatoes and plants so far. My favorite part is the bottle with tomato juice and basil near the bottom center, but I'm also pretty fond of the cut in half tomatoes under the house too. And also the sliced yellow tomatoes at the top. It's all so cute. :)

I might try to finish this month but I won't push it too hard. Depends on how much time I have. :3 

Tomatoes - new start!

I finally got started on the companion piece to Cucumbers last week. Say hello to Tomatoes!

Not quite a quarter finished, but this section I'm working on defines the boundaries of the top left quarter of the design. It's very cute so far and an easy stitch. I've been distracted by a bunch of things recently but I think it's still possible to finish half of the pattern this month if I can focus up a bit. :)

And that's all for now! Hopefully I'll be back with an update soon. :3 

Peacock Band Sampler - getting close!

It's been a while since I took a photo of Peacock Band Sampler. The last update was the center band and the narrow one just below it. Since then, I've added three more and started a fourth. :)

These have been relatively easy going, especially compared to the Jessica stitch nightmare on the top half. The wide blue band with the satin stitch hearts was a little boring, and I'm not sure if I want to add the little partial heart nubs at the corners. I did one at the bottom right corner of the band but I still don't know if I like it. There's still a parked thread in case I decide to do it. :)

The narrow band under that went fast, and then the wide green one took... a while. Too long, honestly, with just under 2/3 done when I sat down to stitch today. I was determined to power through and get it done, and it took about 2.5 hours, but it's done! I had to substitute a different thread for the specialty stitches because the two greens were impossible to tell apart. They worked better on the top half band where they were paired, probably because the specialty stitches were bigger/denser.

There's a little start on the next band from when my attention started to wander last week. Well, now I can give this new one my full attention instead of using it to avoid the wide one!

Only three bands left, including this barely started one! :3