Take A Stitch Tuesday 2012 Challenge - Week 13

Let's start with a completion of sorts... the mini-challenge put out by Sharon B in this weeks' Take a Stitch Tuesday "break" take from 3 to six of the stitches we have learned so far and create some "eye candy. Well, you know me, I'm always looking at pieces others have done with these stitches and wondering "Why didn't *I* see that potential for that stitch?" And my "eye candy" probably isn't an original idea since I'm pretty sure it's been done before. But it is ALL my own, layout and I did the figures all freehand and from my own "knowledge" (and years of taking classes in marine biology)...

I stitched it on 32-ct opalescent overdyed "Reflections" ("Ocean")  from Silkweaver so the sparkle made photography a little tricky. The threads used were various scraps of Weeks Dye Works (3500 "Sand" for the pattern darning/running stitch ocean floor, 1230 "Molasses" for the French knot in the Sea-horse's Eye, 4125 "Snowflake" for the blanket stitch eye, and 4103 "Harvest" for chain stitched Brittle Star) and Gentle Art Sampler Threads ("Bittersweet for the whipped wheel scallop shell, Butternut Squash for the couched outlines and detached chain stitches in the sand dollars - which are barely visible in this photo, down near the scallop shell, Raspberry Parfait for the backstitched seahorse outline,  Antique rose for the blanket stitch fins and running stitch contours in the seahorse, and Green Apple, Shutter Green and Blue Spruce  for the fly stitch sea weeds).

By Tuesday, I had also completed (YAY!) the outline of "Kimono - Revisited", counting error and all. I can see it --- it's glaring to me, but am hoping that the filling stitches will camouflage the error. I looked and looked and looked until I was going cross-eyed; I marked up two chart copies, I even used pi pricks to keep count, but it is still off two stitches somewhere. Oh well, why should it be any different from any other counted project I do --- fudging is my middle name!

The fair announced it's needlework categories this week and, Lo! and Behold!, they are adding higher count fabrics (up to and including 40 ct) to framed samplers and pictures! It took two years of my comments but maybe someone was listening after all! Also, the "special" category this year is "Twas the Night Before Christmas" so I need to kit up a Christmas piece (I have just the thing) to do and see if there is any way I can get up to seven entries again this year (after all, the only way to make back my entry fee is to flood the categories...) while trying to keep up with all these challenges I signed up for *and* "Kimono - Revisited"!