I'm still trying to figure out my new-to-me photo-editing program, which is very different from my previous one, a demo version that was no longer available by the time I got my new laptop in January -- gee, yes, it's September already, and I'm still trying to figure things out. But maybe because I've been stitching instead of trying to figure out my computer -- I will admit that for various reasons, not all of them to my credit, I've spent many hours a week working on this!
It is of course the "English Cottage Sampler" designed by Teresa Wentzler. As I said earlier, in April I proposed to my friend J that, since we both had an unfinished Wentzler in our respective cupboards, we have a finish-along, so we've been sharing photos and encouraging texts all summer. I had much the easier project, since J's has not only a peacock with that complex tail but also a lot of foliage -- even Wentzler herself says that the "Cottage" is one of her easier designs! --
It's pretty apparent upon inspection that the floral vine border is mirrored on the two sides -- this made what seemed to me a rather awkward transition in the middle in some places. I disguised these joins -- in the pink alternating border at the bottom and top, in the pink vertical "trellis" at the bottom of the oval surrounding the cottage, and in the trellis-work at the top -- in a few different ways. For the trellis in the floral border, I simply eliminated much of it, where it came together in a sort of W manner, and to be honest, that empty space doesn't really read as "something is missing" to me, but just restfully empty where the two vines are coming together. For the pink alternating border at the bottom, I expanded the two stitches to fill the space -- there were 8 threads that needed to be covered, and so I worked a "lower" stitch over 3 threads across instead of 2, then a regular cross as the "upper" one, and another expanded one. Unless you're looking for it, it's quite hard to spot! The pink "trellis" was trickier, as it's more exposed -- there instead of wider stitches, I left wider spaces. shifting the two pink lines in the middle just one thread to accommodate the necessary space -- but it's still a little more pleasing to my eye than the four-space gap in the original.
I have a tendency to pay more attention to Js and Ss than other letters in a cross-stitch alphabet, I suppose for obvious reasons, and so it seemed to me that the original S looked more upside-down than right-side-up. I flipped the capital S when I worked the large alphabet in 1991, but had completely forgotten about it when I started it back up again this past April, and since the majority of the piece was rolled up on my frame when I did the small alphabet -- because I started at the bottom -- it didn't occur to me to flip the S in the small alphabet as well. So there it stays. It doesn't leap out at me as much as the capital one did, there is that.
But, other than shortening the last lazy-daisy stitch at the top and bottom of the two vertical swan-box borders (instead of doing a half-pair of "leaves", as it were), those were the only changes I made on purpose -- yes, I know there were numerous mistakes, but even Wentzler says, "Don't sweat the small ones!" The cottage roof I think was the trickiest, and is in fact the first time I've found it necessary to actually cross off stitches as I worked them -- the swans were a bit crazy-making, but the roof was by far even more so!
J and I had a discussion one evening about long floats on the back -- I was pretty lucky with this one, as the backstitching covered up those long floats between leaves quite nicely, thank you! (I did usually secure the floats where possible, but it wasn't always, especially between the pink flowers, and I did not want to keep tying off and reattaching threads.)
I was quite unsure about the beads from the very beginning, not being a particularly sparkly person myself, and was half-tempted to do French knots instead, but in the end I did the beads, and for beads they're actually quite subtle on this piece! so I'm glad I did.
And so, all things considered, I'm very happy to have worked this, and even more happy to have finished it!
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