Persian Fantasy: Area 9 - One corner stitched

After working a little bit on my brazilian project yesterday, I then switched to Persian Fantasy, a needlepoint project on which I have not worked on for a little while now. I have stitched one corner, area 9, which are variations of Japanese silk and metal embroidery filling patterns. I like the look of it but I did not enjoy stitching it at all and I still have 3 other corners to do. I guess there is always some parts in a project that we enjoy less than the rest and I have just reached it :-(

I took an overall picture for you so that you can get some idea of what has been done so far. This last filling really makes the corner stands out. It is a lovely design and I will get it done for sure :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Areas 7 & 8

Now you know the outcome of the debate I have been having with myself . I really do miss doing rotations with my projects, but there is also a part of me that really wants to catch up with this project and see if I can make it or not. I had actually put the project away but picked it up again and yesterday I have done the little corner section (areas 7 and 8).


This is a close-up of areas 7 and 8. Multiple steps here. This is supposed to be light green, what it seems to me like a blueish green but it definitely came out as blue on my photo.

Have added a third photo showing a perfect square. Well, it will be as soon as I complete area 9. Guess what I am going to be working on today? Right on the money! Area 9 :-)

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I am starting to think that perhaps I am going to be able to catch up on this cyberclass after all (big grin).

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Areas 1 through 6 completed

I now feel that I have reached a point in this project where more than half of it has been completed and that from now on things will be progressing faster, but there are still plenty more work to do before Persian Fantasy is ready for the framer.

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I am now debating with myself whether I want to continue working on this project or take a little break and work on another one and then come back to it more refreshed. Next photo will tell you which side of me has won that debate :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Still working on Area 6

Done one more Area 6 corner, so two more to do and I am done with that. I was checking up to see what else I have to do before Jane Zimmerman gives us another lesson.

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I am now working on lesson 3 and I still have area 8 to stitch before completing that lesson.

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Then I already have lesson 4 waiting, which has areas 7, 9 and 15 to stitch.

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And guess what! Lesson 5 is around the corner, end of June (boohoo).

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With all the work that needs to be done on each lesson and the HOT weather that we are now having in the deep South that is making it more difficult for me to stitch as much as I would like, I have pretty much given up on ever catching up on this project. Oh well, that won't be the first time and I bet it won't be the last either. I am still enjoying working on this piece and my husband loves it, so I guess all is well with the world :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Working on Area 6: Burden stitch

Yesterday, I ended up not stitching at all and the weather is partly to blame for it. It was close to 100 degrees outside and my stitching room is the hottest room in the house and whenever we feel rather comfortable in all the other rooms in the house (we have a two-level house), mine is always the warmest. With close to 100°F outside, our upstairs air conditioning unit has a bit more problems keeping up with the sun hitting the rooftop full force and the attic becoming warmer and warmer. Anyway, that explains my very slow progress on this piece.
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On this first photo above, you can see Area 6 being stitched. Lower right left corner is all completed and you can see the first step of the burden stitch having already been done in the other three corners using a vatican gold metallic thread.

On this second photo above, you can see a close-up of what the burden stitch looks like when completed, quite beautiful, I think :-)

And finally in this third photo above, I have taken a close-up view of the first step of the burden stitch. Unfortunately it is a bit hard to see properly but that gives you some idea anyway for those of you who have never stitched it before. I had not stitched it myself before this project but will soon use it again when I start stitching an Iris project designed by Dorothy Lesher, so I should be pretty good at this by then (big grin).

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It is now 87.6 degrees outside and it is barely 9:20 in the morning, so we can expect to get close to 100 degrees again today, so I am not a happy camper.

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For those of you who have not yet associated my first name "Pierrette" with my place of origin, I am French Canadian and have lived a big part of my life in the French province of Quebec in Canada.

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Temperatures used to be much cooler up there, but things are slowly changing and getting warmer in most places these days, except of course in England where my good friend Terry lives and always complains that she is freezing and has no summer to speak of. If I could I would switch place with her anytime as I love it when it is cool. I used to spend my summers outdoors when living in Quebec and now since I have been living in the deep South (USA), I spend my summers inside with my air conditioning and I hate it. I feel that things are not supposed to be this way. Fall and summer are pretty good though, but it is not quite the same, but I will take whatever I can :-)

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Better go back to my stitching before it gets too hot again.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Area 4

Another area completed this morning, which is area 4 showing eight little light green flowers on each side of the bigger one. The thread looks a bit like a blueish green, quite lovely actually.

Have included an overall photo showing you what has been done so far. I must say that Jane Zimmerman's Persian Fantasy is looking better and better, the more I stitch on it, not that I have ever doubted it for a mini second :-)

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On another note, Jane of Chilly Hollow brought to our attention this morning an extremely interesting and motivating video showing an interview with Rosalyn Cherry-Soleil of Stitchamaze.com . I always love to visit Jane's blog as she has always interesting things to talk about and I can't remember the number of times that she has brought things to my attention that I would have hated to have missed.

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About Stitchemaze and Rosalyn, this is one of the best place around to go for inspiration. I must confess that I have never taken the time up to now to fully pay her a long visit and I plan to correct just that starting this evening and the days to come.

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Jane by sending me there this morning got me thinking about how I can stretch myself more and more as we often tend to do things that we know we are good at and sometimes avoid things that we are not quite sure we can manage. I know that I have always tried to stretch myself in my stitching, but I really need to do much more of it and see how far I can really go.

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Oh by the way, I do love Rosalyn's studio. Wow, wouldn't I love to be able to stitch in such a lovely place!

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Well better go back to my stitching now and start working on area 6 :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Lesson 2 completed

Finally, I have just completed lesson 2 and have also managed to take a decent photo with so much exposed canvas in the center. I tried different settings and now I can't remember which setting this one was. I must say that was not done in a very scientific fashion.

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I would have finished this section much earlier than this, but have been helping my husband doing some gardening work for the last several days and it was so hot outside, close to 90 degrees and at times rather humid too, so whenever I came back inside after working in the garden, there was no more energy left in me to stitch. Oh well, my part in this work is now done, so I will be able to enjoy the air conditioning inside and stitch to my heart's content :-)

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I now need to catch up with lesson 3. I just bet that by the time I am done with it, it will be time for lesson 4 as we get one every two weeks or so. Not good to get behind like this in a big project. What takes a lot of time is the laying of all those plies (5 of them to be exact). That really takes a lot of time, patience and manipulation, but it is pretty, got to say that about it.

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Better get back to it now or I will get burried under all this work. For those who have been waiting for me to continue working on Hollyhock House, I will get to it as soon as I am caught up with Persian Fantasy. I am starting to severely miss working on it and even worst as now the fun part has started. Same thing for my other projects, I am afraid. Life is tough (sad sad expression).

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy, Area 5: Three sides done

The last couple days, I spent time doing some gardening work with my husband so that has slowed me down a bit on my stitching. It has also tired me out as I have been using muscles that I do not normally use while stitching and I can feel the pain and I am afraid that we need to do more of it in the coming days, so .............

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Anyway, I have just added another photo showing the third side of area 5 that has been completed. One more and I will be ready to move on to lesson 3.

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For those of you who are wondering why the big pile of threads in the middle, I have got a very easy explanation for you. It is simply to cover the blank canvas as if I don't do that we will all be staring at wavy lines. I have never been able to photograph blank canvas without those nasty wavy lines. If someone knows how to do this, please take pity on me and let me know how you do it as I sure can't. Just in case someone would like to volunteer, here is my email address: Lovetostitch99@comcast.net :-)

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I will now start working on the fourth side until I hear my husband calling for me to go outside and do backbreaking work :-(

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Area 5, two out of 4 stitched

While I was stitching this morning, I was wondering why it seemed to me to have taken so long to stitch only one side yesterday and thought that perhaps it was because I took too many coffee breaks or in my case water or juice breaks or perhaps too many distractions. Distractions are so easy when you sit next to your computer and you don't even notice :-(
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Anyway, because of the little I managed to stitch yesterday, I decided to put more time into it today and as chance would have it, I woke up around 4:30 this morning and felt pretty good so decided to get up and after having breakfast I started stitching and managed to do the second one and I still have this afternoon to do more work on it, so by the end of the day I will probably have 3 sides completed, leaving one for tomorrow, at least those are the plans and you know what happens to the best of plans, don't you? Right! So, let's hope it works out as planned this time around :-)
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Back to my stitching now ...........
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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Area 5

Well it seems that area 5 will take me quite a bit of time to complete as I have only been able to stitch one section of it and there are four of them and it took me a big chunk of the morning and a portion of the afternoon too. The thing is that there are 3 steps necessary in order to complete this design and I am using 5 ply which means that I am using my laying tool, which means "time". The effect though is really pretty. It almost looks like velour and with the metallic thread added to it, makes it look really rich.
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The photo above shows area 5 with areas 1 and 3. Hope I am not confusing you all too much with all those areas as I think that I am already starting to confuse myself and there are 15 areas total :-(
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I have taken a closer look of a section of area 5 for you with one of the flower.

At this speed, I still have three more days of work on area 5 before I can move on to my third lesson and I really can't see how I can move any faster as these things just takes lots of time in order to do them properly.

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I always say that it is not the destination that counts but the journey, so got to live it now (grinning).

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I wanted to make a nice coconut pie this morning but never got to it, so will leave my stitching for today and get to it. I think that is one of my very favorite pie next to chocolate and apple.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Area 3

This morning I went back to Jane D. Zimmerman's current cyberclass class called Persian Fantasy that I am taking through the Shining Needle Society after not stitching on it at all for approximaely three weeks due to working exclusively on my pilot class. During that time Jane gave us two assignments which includes four different areas. The photo above shows area 3 which repeats itself in every corner.

This photo above shows you one side of the area 3 design. You can also see areas 1 & 2 on each side.
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If you feel like refreshing your memory about this project, you may go to my first blog entry and then continue on to my second blog entry and you will be all caught up with me on this project without actually having to do all the hard work. Actually how can I really call this hard work when it is such a lovely piece to stitch and I am enjoying it immensely. Why bother to stitch anything anyway if we are not having fun while doing it?

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When I think of all the beautiful projects that are available to us, I am so very thankful to all those wonderful designers out there. I don't think that I could design any decent project to save my own life. It is just not in me, but I do love to stitch lovely designs and we all have plenty out there to choose from.

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I will now proceed to work on area 5 which is part of my second assignment, skipping area 4 which will be in my third assignment together with area 6, so lots of catching up to do, but will get there eventually :-)

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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: Area 2

We are having another nice rainy day here, but hey I do not dare complain about it since we have had many years of draught lately and it has not been a pretty sight, so I will take all the rain that they are willing to send us. The trees are just loving it and have never looked so good and such in good health. My little basil plants though do not seem to like having wet feet all the time, so the old saying that we can't please everyone all the time remains true even in nature (grinning).
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Well, I have just completed Area 2 of Persian Fantasy and here is a photo of it. That gold metallic thread (I think it is vatican gold) with that cranberry thread is really something. It brings the whole canvas alive. The photo does not even begin to show you how pretty it is. I still need to stitch his twin on the opposite side of the canvas and then I will be done with this first assignment. We get a new assignment every two weeks.
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I just keep thinking how pretty this will be on my wall as I intend to have mine framed though having it finished as a pillow is certainly an option as we can see from the photographs on Jane's website. Of course, that would be the kind of pillow that you just look at it. Beware the person who would DARE use it for his or her own personal comfort :-(
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Pierrette =^..^=

Persian Fantasy: A Jane D. Zimmerman cyberclass with Shining Needle Society

For the last few days I have been working on "Persian Fantasy" designed by Jane D. Zimmerman. Jane is teaching this cyberclass on Shining Needle Society.

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There are different color options offered for this design and I selected Green and Cranberry for mine instead of blue.

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I don't seem to have done much so far on this project, but that would be entirely false. There were lots of prework to do as we had to mark the canvas intersections for all areas of the design. This was relatively easy to do but took quite a bit of time. Then I had to outline all the bands with tent/reverse tent/back stitches.

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The photo above shows Area 1 (historical florentine stitch) using all the colors that will be included in this project except the dark green. I have another one like this to stitch that is located on the opposite side and then Area 2 (which is an hungarian point) which I still have to stitch two of of the same.

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I will be back with another photo as soon as Area two has been stitched.

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Pierrette =^..^=