Precious Little....

 

Progress....

It Is That time of year, Dear Readers, in this part of the World, Garden season has begun! As a result, I have spent most of my energy outside this week, tidying up after our arduous Winter season. It is so wonderful to be able to spend time outside again.... all the new growth bursting from the ground and transforming the world minute by minute. My forsythia are in full bloom... the crocus have called it quits and the daffodils are beginning to shine. Everywhere green is emerging from the dead brown earth. We have spent this week with a "heat wave" with temperatures in the 80's every day which is not at all usual for this time of year. I am hoping it will cool down to normal... which would be the 50's instead. Meanwhile, the Ambitious project called "The Castle" has seen a very small amount of work accomplished on those Glorious Great Hall Windows. Above you can see the morning sun pointing my attention to my current task.... get those window frames completed! I spent hours on one afternoon carefully cutting eight little pieces of wood for the "capitals" at the top of each of the window frame pieces for the upper windows. The pieces needed to be as identical in size as I could manage with my hand saws, and they needed to just cover the top of the side frame bar and extend just far enough into the  window area to create the correct starting point for the window arch pieces which will top each window. Believe me, this was actually quite complicated! And then I needed to trim the thickness of each piece because my 1/4 inch stock is too thick by about 1/32 of an inch! (This matters!) But I did it! Another hour spent carefully shaving a layer off the back side of each "capital". Then painting the edges and gluing in place.

 

Here you can sort of see (in the too dark picture) 

the capitals on the two windows at the left have been added, 

and the two on the right have not.

 

Here all eight of the carefully fitted capitals are in place! 

So much work for such a small piece of the trim! 

But it really matters to get it right!

 

Here I am testing the "pattern" for the window top arch pieces. 

Now that the capitals are in place I can figure out

 exactly how the arch will fit and see if

 one pattern can work for all the windows. 

Ideally the answer is yes... 

and so far it looks like it might work!

 

And as for the other project I worked on this week, Dear Readers,

  the Tapestry stitching got a little attention too! 

I left you with my beginnings of the horse's harness... 

but on further examination of my design 

I noted some flaws in my chart pattern. 

The shoulder harness piece 

(I don't know what it was called in Medieval times) 

should not look the same on both sides 

because the horse is slightly turned to the side.

I had charted a straight slant to the piece, 

while it needed to curve gradually... 

 

Here you can see the original colored design

 on the right has been erased...

 I have penciled in the outline for the new pattern,

 but not yet colored the new design.

 

Here the new design has been colored. 

This graph paper has ten squares to the inch 

so the design is fairly picky to color correctly, 

but the chart is nearly twice as large as the actual stitching....

 

Here you can see what I mean.... 

the stitching ends up much smaller than the chart.... 

but in order to make the chart and read the chart, 

it needs to be at least this large.

 

Here you can see I have stitched more of the harness

 and started the outline of the legs.

 

Here I have made a little progress on the legs... 

outlining with some of the color variance.

The lifted foreleg will be the lighter shade of brown

 to highlight it and "bring it forward" visually... 

when I get it stitched!

 

 I also decided I needed to get the hooves in play

in order to be sure my proportions were looking right when stitched.

 

Here you can see a little more done on the hooves

 and the darker shades on the lower leg. 

And that is all I got done this week. 

 

So you can see, Dear Readers, 

precious little got done in my big projects. 

But it's all Little, and it's all Precious, 

and it's all good Progress!