Since I stitched my purple color conversion of Cross Eyed Cricket's Playing with Jax a couple of years ago, I have had lots of requests for the freebie chart of the alternative center pumpkin. Even though the chart was a freebie, I emailed the designer and asked her permission to pass along the freebie to those who were requesting it. She graciously agreed. For the past couple of years I have been sharing it when asked. Well, apparently she was getting lots of requests too, because--good news!--she has reposted the alternative center pumpkin freebie on her gift design page. I don't know how long it will be available, so if you missed out the first time, better go grab a copy just in case! Thank you, Vicki!
All the information on my color conversion can be found by clicking on the Playing with Jax label at the end of this post, or by clicking on the picture of my finish in the right side bar.
I put in another block of my Autumn Sampler project. Beautiful, rosy, crisp fall apples! Scroll down a bit for a view of the whole sampler and a link to the Etsy shop where I found it. And also a better idea of the fabric color I've chosen (sigh... cloudy day). This is a fun stitch!
So today I'm plunging ahead with my Christmas Open House projects and hoping to have another finish--which I won't be able to show you!--in a few weeks. I'm really excited about this year and having a ball working on it, and so far it's working out very well having a few autumn-y ongoing projects for a change. Thanks for all your kind words on Fancy Pumpkins--that one is a joy to stitch, too. Hopefully, I'll get another pumpkin done this week. The ol' needle is smokin'!
Happy Stitching (and don't forget to go snag that Playing with Jax freebie)!
Here it is! My accidental purple conversion of Playing with Jax, and the original design below.
My changes:
Flower Pumpkin (right back pumpkin):
3740--changed to-->3041
3813-->3013
309-->437
large flower:
977-->Autumn Bouquet
350-->977
vine:
3011-->3012
3810-->437
stem: 869
backstitch: 3011
Borders:
top border: 3042
bottom border (replaced leaves with acorns):
acorn caps: 869 & 437
acorns (left to right): 3012, 3776, Autumn Bouquet, 356, 3042
For the changes on the rest of the pumpkins, click on the Playing with Jax label.
Remember in my last post, when I said the black seemed too harsh, and that I was sort of unintentionally ending up with a purple conversion of Playing with Jax? Well, that Lace Pumpkin stitched in black and grey in the original got a makeover. It's now purple.
My changes:
Lace Pumpkin (right front pumpkin):
310--changed to-->3740
844-->3042
644-->3866
3865-->3866
926-->437
This is the fun of playing with color. Sometimes when you start changing things, you end up going in directions you never even thought of when you started. It turns an enjoyable but predictable stitch into a mini voyage of discovery, and that's one of the main things that keeps me from falling into stitching "slumps." I love experimenting with color and I love the surprises that come with those experiments. Yep, I was surprised by this purple pumpkin!
Speaking of surprises, the day before Mr. Wonderful left I got a goody box from my mom that contained these little cuties (yes, there's candy in that trick-or-treat bag!).
Aren't they adorable? They are so cute I just started laughing when I unwrapped them. They're about 5" high and she makes them from kits she gets from Mary Maxim. They arrived just in time for my Halloween scary movie marathon!
Well, Tiger Lily and I have been on our own for a few days now, and so far, so good. We had a major storm last night (no damage, thankfully) and it has turned cold. Here's what you do when your nose is cold but you have a fluffy tail you can use as a scarf:
I'm down to the last pumpkin on Playing with Jax, and then I'll have to make some decisions on the border--whether to stitch it as-is or fiddle with it. I'm still on track to have a finish soon, and then I can get going on my Joy projects. I'm looking forward to those!
First of all, thank you so much for your kind comments on my last post about Mr. Wonderful being gone for six weeks. I really appreciate them. I told him that since he will be gone, we'll probably have a freak November snowstorm and I'll come down with my quadrennial cold. Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly, because if you are or have ever been a military wife, you know what happens when the guys leave!
Anyway, I'm speeding along on Playing with Jax, trying to finish up by the end of the month so I can plunge into my Joy projects. Three pumpkins down, two to go!
My changes:
Quilt Pumpkin (left front pumpkin):
310--changed to--> 3011
844-->3012
3022-->3032
927-->3042
926-->3740
stem-->869
*****
Sampler Pumpkin (left back pumpkin):
3813-->738
letters-->Autumn Bouquet (stitched using the mismatched method; see this post)
stem-->869
My thinking behind the changes I'm making is not so much a color conversion as a color adjustment. I wanted the overall look of all the pumpkins to be closer to the silk used in the leaves on Forest Pumpkin, so I'm making changes as I go, as opposed to plotting out in advance an entirely new color scheme, as I would with a conversion. Forest Pumpkin has a "soft" look to it, and when I started stitching the Quilt Pumpkin, the black in it seemed too harsh so I switched it to dark green. In the original chart, the black is nicely balanced with the black features on the center pumpkin. I also used the silk in the letters on the Sampler Pumpkin, to tie them together a bit.
I'm happy with how this is going so far. Although I didn't really intend it, it looks like it's turning out to be a "purple conversion" of Playing with Jax. I hope to have it finished by the beginning of November. Stay tuned!
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."
I'm getting my fall project ready to go. I'll be stitching CEC's Playing with Jax, but I'll be using the alternative "Forest Pumpkin" as the center instead of the Jack-0-lantern. CEC offered the Forest Pumpkin chart as a freebie when Playing with Jax was released, but I've never seen it stitched, either as the center of Playing with Jax or by itself.
This is the silk for the leaves on Forest Pumpkin.
I love the colors in this silk, so I decided to adjust the colors in the main chart to bring them a bit more in line with the silk. Here are the original colors, followed by my adjustments.
I substituted muted greens for all of the blues, toned down the bright berry colors, and pushed the lighter greys to beiges.
We'll see how this works out. I plan to start it at the beginning of October.
