Stitches And Stems....

 

Sewing And Shaping....

I Reassessed the frame pieces in my pile of different sized pieces, Dear Readers, and came up with a larger frame that almost fits the entire William Morris carpet. It was enough larger that I could make considerable progress with the main design area. This will keep me going for a while! The carpet is a square one, so there is an area of border all around which will need to be scrolled a bit to stitch all of it. I will deal with that when I need to. The design is really coming along and is fun and easy to stitch. I just love to stitch these wool carpets! As for the other carpet I am working on, the Chinese Dragon Carpet, I have also made some good progress. 

Sorry the picture is a bit dark... 

(yes, it is dreary and gloomy here!)

But I was able to get the outline for the second dragon completed.

They are not identical and I wanted to make sure

 their heads feet and tails did not intrude too far on each other!

So far so good! 

But this scale of stitching requires good light to stitch...

 so I must work on it only on the sunny bright mornings!

 

And As for those Stems, Dear Readers,

I am slowly making progress on shaping the shrubs!

 

The next step was to shorten those long downward curved stems.

I used the cut ends to twist around the stem to make branched side stems.

Because this wire is very stiff, I needed to go slowly 

(to keep my arm from getting sore again!)

This shrub is Shrub#1, and you can see how it sits in the Folly Garden.

The next day I repeated those cuts on the other two shrubs.

And glued the branched stems and let them dry thoroughly.

And because branches Branch...(!) 

I then added more stems to each of the added branches...

Here is Shrub#1 again, having the stems added to some of those branches...

And because they are also very very stiff wire.... it was slow going.

This one is Shrub#3...

Once the glue is thoroughly dry

 the stems can be shaped to a more natural curve.

And Shrub#2 getting the same treatment!

And of course, Shrub#1 also getting the glue on those stems.

The wire is so stiff that I can only do a few at a time.

But I'm making progress!

And yes, Dear Readers,

 the Blossom Factory is keeping to the challenge!

I made 10 bunches last week, 

and am well launched on this week...

Stitches and Stems and Blossoms...

Oh My!