Changing of the Thread.

Having gotten thoroughly confused over just which green I had been using, it called for a changing of the thread. Down with the tree thread, up with the foliage thread. Some of the greens, I’m down to 3 skeins, and it doesn’t take much to go through a skein. Others I have a great deal of, so I need to do larger blocks with those particular colours.

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Bad Taste.

Oh, the vintage pistachio Perles (light and medium, 320 and 368), holy fuck, do they ever taste nasty. If you’re wondering why I know what they taste like, it’s because I stick one end in my mouth to get it nice and wet, so it can be easily flattened for threading. I won’t be doing anymore of that with these particular threads. I don’t think these are nearly old enough to have employed arsenic, but who the fuck knows? Even cinnamon mouth wash isn’t getting rid of it. Yikes.

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Succumbing To The Unpickening.

Until now, I’ve avoided unpicking on the tree quilt, which has been so very nice. In my early haste to start the foliage, however, I fucked up. I hadn’t picked up the flow yet, and now that I have it, that first section jars, badly. I’ve left it be, telling myself to give it a chance. It keeps drawing my eye, and leaving a bad taste in the brain, so it must go. Every needlesmith on the planet knows the feelings when you meet up with the unavoidable unpickening. Unpicking knots is not as bad as unpicking, say, a raised satin stitch, but it’s not fun, either. Eh, that wasn’t so bad. At least I didn’t rip the fabric!

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Knotty.

Working on the foliage. The trunk was all Candlewick knots, which are much too small for the foliage. Even French knots are on the small side with the Perle 3, so I’ve combined the two. I get to keep the in front, half infinity movement of the Candlewick, with two wraps added. This gives me a bulkier knot, with the added plus of keeping movements which are now automatic. I usually work with thread lengths of 65 to 85 inches, because it takes very little time to go through that length of thread. Click for full size.

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The End Brings The Beginning: The Great Upside Down.

The trunk and branches of the tree are finished. Took long enough. Now, to get the immense span of foliage done. To do this in the frame, I have to do it upside down. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem for anyone else, but while I’m not dyslexic, I am prone to transposing, letters, numbers, spaces, and directions. I just know I’ll be humming along, all pleased, then it will hit me, “fuck, it’s backwards!”, and I’ll have to like it, because it’s not like I’ll be willing to rip it out and redo it. Current Hours: 1,169. Skeins Used: 183. (That’s 1,464 meters of thread, or 1,592 yards.) Click for full size.

© C. Ford, all rights reserved.