January Smalls check in and Joyful World

Here is my January Small for the 2017 Small SAL sweetly hosted by Heather at Stitching Lotus! It is Mon Petit Jardin by Atalie. I stitched it in my own choice of mixed overdyes on 28 ct linen. And it is a day late because, I have to admit, even for the size and simplicity of this project, it was fraught with problems! Knots, slipped stitches, learning the reverse spiderweb rose stitch, French knots popping through, and I am not quite satisfied with the colors I chose. They are ok. Now that is it made up as a heart it is quite pretty. The plan is to mount the heart on some framed fabric, so I need a little square frame. If I can find the right fabric it will be lovely. And maybe you think it is nice, but you know what I mean about having one of THOSE projects that gives you a lot of headaches- it is hard to appreciate it even if it turns out fine. That’s this one. For now I am glad to just put it down!

On the other hand, I could not be more delighted with Joyful World’s January! I just have to finish the eyelet border under the fox. It is SO cute and really fun to work on. Now, before, when I just had the tail of the fox in, I was dreading what I perceived as the large expanse of monochrome fox body. Filling in is not my favorite, and this is not even that big! I was just a few lines into it and discovered Vonna’s (The Twisted Stitcher) technique of a modified sewing stitch without turning your needle. I was skeptical. After all, how could my grandma have taught me anything but the “proper” way and even if it worked, shouldn’t I do it the “proper” way? No. Not today. Faced with all this straight-forward boring stitching, I was going to try this out. And oh my goodness, I feel just like I have been eating soup with the wrong end of a spoon my whole life. I knocked that fox out, I raced through the border and the crow was done in a literal spare moment. Not only that but NO KNOTS! And the threads do lay very flat! Thank you Vonna, you have changed my life! The only thing I noticed about this technique is that it seems to be quite hard on my floss compared to the stab method. Towards the end of a thread they do get a bit fuzzy. I think I will not use it for silk. And for little bitty areas, I will probably stick with my habit. But gosh. For borders and “vast expanses” of one color I will be so grateful I now know how to do it in half the time. To watch Vonna’s method, look at her video here.