Filling The Gaps.....

 

 Details..... Details.....

I did a lot of Repairing things last weekend, Dear Readers, fixing gaps in the Castle stonework and adding missing stitches to the Medieval Ladies Tapestry. It was one of those satisfying stretches of actually making things come out right after all! Imagine That! I have a tendency when stitching the Petit-point to want to get all of one color in place before adding another one.... this only works on small designs, I am discovering. The trick I am learning is that you can leave one color thread "dangling".... just unthread the needle and let it drape to the side while you "work" for a while with another color. This is much more like painting and easier to fix the missing stitches before you have gone too far. I am learning! As I was fixing the missing brown stitch in the Lady's cuff, I found a missing pink stitch, and one that was supposed to be pink but I had stitched brown.... I know you don't need to hear all of this... but I had to unstitch quite a bit and re-do it. 

Fortunately, I had not gone too far and was able to get the stitches right.

 

And over in the Castle Stables, 

you recall I only had one more "Arch support" to complete... 

but it turned out to have an even wider gap than the back wall!

I don't know how I didn't notice it for all those years!

It needed filling the same way as the previous one...

A long strip of "ceiling" glued in the gap 

and then covered (mostly!) with the "stone" pieces.

You can see the rough edges where the strip didn't glue exactly right.

But this is the "camera's" view... 

I can't get my head this close to actually see it.

 And I also added the missing "stones" 

to the Stable Door surround...

They had to be fitted one at a time.

It is so hard to see back there

and I couldn't measure the gap 

and hold a stone in place at the same time.

And you might have thought, Dear Readers, 

that the Guard Room was already completed...

But once I had "strengthened" the corner post in the Stables....

The corner of the Guard Room looked weak.

So I started to "strengthen" it too...

Here you can see the stronger corner.... 

just needing the grout lines painted.

I thought it looked Great....

Except that the "capital" now was out of balance.... 

and I had never been satisfied with it in the first place.

Here you can see the close-up "before" shot....

(What a mess of miss-matched pieces!)

Here it is "after" the capital has been remedied.

This was a really complicated piece to shape!

I am really pleased with how it turned out!

And on the other wall..... Over the Door to the Great Hall...

There was an arch that hadn't been added yet...

(I didn't get a good "before" picture)

Here the stones are added, 

waiting for the grout lines to be painted.

And the final "stones" over the stable doors....

And even the small side door was finished....

And then I had to paint all the Grout lines....

The Guard Room ceiling arch....

The "strengthened" Corner Post....

(So Satisfying to see...!)

The Dungeons ceiling arch.....

 

Stables left hand side.....

 

Right hand side....

(I even added the door handles!)

 

The back wall.....

I can't tell you how satisfying it is to have this done! 

And as for the Ladies Tapestry, Dear Readers,

I am making changes to the original design.

I wanted the Ladies to look more Medieval....

I know it is hard to see.... but I am adding a 

"coif" to the headdress on the left.

This requires adding a new pale gray thread color,

 because the off white flesh tone needed to stand out against it.

It won't be until I am doing the background color

 that we will be able to tell how it really will look.

But I think it will work!

She already looks much more Medieval to me!

I know I have not shown you the kit design picture....

I'll do that next week....

For now, Dear Readers, 

I am Happy with all these little details.... 

Filling all those Gaps!