OhSewCrafty Blog

• Pattern by Joan Elliott
• Materials: “Karma” belfast linen by Silkweaver (old), threads, etc as charted
• Finished Size: ~10″ x 14″
• Time to stitch: 2 months (January 19-March 21, 2013)

Here is Joan Elliott’s “Winter Fairy”.  I am exceedingly pleased with how she turned out, the detail is amazing.  And I’m happy to have her finished while it’s still winter, regardless of what the calendar says. The temperature was 25 F this morning.   Sometimes I like my stitching to be seasonal.  

The fabric is a mottled light blue/purple linen, a good background for this rather chilly scene.  The backstitching is extensive and required several evenings to complete, but it sure does make a difference.  I did modify the chart- most of the backstitching is charted as “stairsteps”.  That is not my cup of tea because it calls attention to each little square and renders a more primitive look, IMO.  So, I used mostly diagonal lines to smooth out the curves and make sharp corners.  She’s super sparkly, this project has tons of Kreinik metallic
braid(s), both cross stitching and backstitching.  The beads add sparkle
and dimensionality, but didn’t take too long, ~3 hours start to finish. 

The entire project was fairy quick, completed over 2 months during which I worked on several other projects as well.  Winter Fairy was on the scroll bars for about 3.5 weeks over 3 rotations.  My original goal was complete the entire series (all 4 seasonal fairies) this year, then I decided only 1 or 2, but now I’m not sure.  My WIP/UFO count is down to 7 and that makes me twitchy; I’d like to start Spring Fairy soon if I can find the right fabric in my stash.