Playing with Jax Update: Forest Pumpkin

A while back, in this post, I talked about stitching CEC's Playing with Jax using the alternative center pumpkin "Forest Pumpkin" that was offered as a freebie around the time Playing with Jax was published. I scoured the interwebs for a picture of it stitched, but couldn't find one. I don't understand why, because I think it's really pretty. Here it is:

I'm stitching on 28 ct. Carmel Macchiato from Hand Dyed Fabrics by Stephanie. I've only made a couple of small color changes to this pumpkin: 1) DMC 3042 instead of 927, and 2) DMC 3011 instead of 3022. The main change I made was in how I stitched the leaves that called for Silk 'N Colors Autumn Bouquet (#983). 

I've mentioned before that when stitching with hand dyed threads, I'm not a big fan of the "cross-each-stitch-as-you-go rule" (though I do use it occasionally). Here's an example of why. The leaf on the right is stitched following this "rule" and the leaf on the left is stitched using the "mismatched" method I described in this post. (Please pardon the lighting of this shot; I was stitching at night and snapped a quick picture before frogging and re-stitching the leaf on the right.)

If you like the stripey, rainbow-look of the leaf on the right, then absolutely cross each stitch as you go. Do what makes you happy with your stitching. That's what I did! I like the look of the mismatched method for lots of things, and I think it's especially good for things like trees, leaves, and animal fur. In this shot you should be able to see the "four-color" stitches that this method produces. It creates a nice wash of color, with lots of texture.

One more shot I thought I'd share. There's always a lot of discussion among stitchers about photographs of needlework not being correct color-wise. If you've never tried to get true color photographs of needlework, let me tell you, it's not easy. If you look at the four pictures in this post, the fabric looks different in each picture. Pictures 1, 3, and 4 were taken in exactly the same spot by a window, and they all look different. The other problem? Picture 3 is the best representation of the thread colors, but picture 4 is the best representation of the fabric color. See the difficulty? Now imagine trying to get all the colors of both threads and fabric adjusted so they're all true on a computer monitor, and then getting that picture printed correctly for a chart, which is a totally different color process. 

I had intended to start this project at the beginning of October, but I'm about two weeks behind. Busy times at the Wonderful household, but more on that later. One hint: "unsupervised."