Dorcas’ Strawberry Band

I have been TRYING to work on the Strawberry Band, this month’s assignment for Dorcas Haynes. It is TRICKY! Here I am…

So far I have figured out how wide the backstitches are (the diagonals are over 2 and the horizontals are over 4, but the Scarlet Letter chart is not quite right…it is a little fudged I think, so I have been fudging too), which stitch is used for the vine filling (it is like a double backstitch I think. At least that’s what I’m doing, it is NOT a straight up cross stitch though that will give a similar effect) and how to fill the strawberry stems. The chart calls for tent stitch. As I have tried it, I don’t think that looks good. I have decided to use an encroaching gobelin stitch. I am not sure it is correctly stitched but it looks fine. I wasn’t happy with my first queen stitches because I wasn’t pulling them tightly enough. They didn’t make that lacey effect. I am taking out the equivalent of one whole strawberry (#2) and restitched what progress I had made on numbers 1 and 3. Now don’t they look good? On top of that, I’m still trying to decide on thread colors though I think I’ve got it now! All this has been Very Time Consuming.

Several people have asked me about the colors I’m using. I can communicate with you through Instagram or Facebook messenger if you want more information, but to be honest at this point I have about given up on the color list I started with. So many of the colors just need to be tweaked to meet my vision of what it should look like. I’m not a big one for keeping meticulous notes, so I may not be very helpful! If you are wanting to stitch Dorcas, I suggest you join the Dorcas Haynes 2017 SAL on Facebook. it is not super active but there are people there who have stitched or who are stitching it and the info and pictures in that group has been so helpful to me on my journey!

In other vine news, I finished the vine pin cushion of Jeanette Douglas’ Garden Box and started the Beeskep Sampler, thanks to a softball tournament last weekend. A little project like this can go to the softball tournament and potential get all dirty with baseball dust but Dorcas is a homebody and must live indoors, otherwise I’d have more stitched on her!