OhSewCrafty Blog

• Pattern: Dimensions Gold kit, adapted from art by Ruth Sanderson
• Materials: 16 ct light blue aida, floss as kitted, MH 00577 beads
• Size: 14″ x 12″
• Time to stitch: 61 days estimated (57 since I started tracking)

It may be December, but technically it’s still Fall for a few more days so this lady is seasonal!  

Fall Fairy was my oldest WIP, started in December 2015, 3 years ago.  The colors are gorgeous and definitely motivated me to continue.  A significant portion of the design, probably 40%, is done in half cross. Often those half crosses are done with 3-5 threads in the needle and it takes a little care to make the stitches lie neatly.  There is a ton of a backstitch, in several colors and with different thread counts.  I left almost all of it until the end, which was a slog and a useful lesson.  She would have been finished in November if I had backstitched as I went along.  The charting is excellent, I think it’s a wonderful adaptation of Ruth Sanderson’s art.  

The gold metallic cording attached with couching is a nice dimensional touch, though the crown gave me trouble.  Couched, it just looked like a muddy mess.  The stitches are too small and densely placed.  I’m still not thrilled with it, but I found a combination of backstitch and couching to give a reasonably good result. The beading took several hours at the end; there are some on every page and they are charted in a rather random way.  The beads are attached by coming up and going down in the same hole; I don’t love the look, but there’s no room for them otherwise since this the whole chart is full coverage.  

The materials as kitted are a mixed bag, I suppose.  I found the aida to be cheap and nasty.  In the beginning it was stiff as a board, it actually hurt my wrists to stitch on it.  I overcast the edges, ran it through the washing machine, and left it rolled up in my crafting cabinet for a long time.  That whole process softened it considerably.  However, the aida was still rather loosely woven and and it was easy to put the needle through adjacent, but not actually in the holes.  That aspect was annoying.

The floss is good, plentiful, fluffy enough, with tons of lovely colors, and many subtle gradations of color too.  The beads would have been fine, but I misplaced them so I subbed some Mill Hill beads in my stash, which were a close match, as far as I could tell from the picture.  

My favorite aspect is probably the sense of motion, as she twirls and leaves float on the autumn breeze.  The backstitching was painstaking, but it brought so many details into sharp releif.  The mushrooms are cute.  I think her hair is gorgeous.  Her facial features are somewhat delicate, with tiny backstitches that split the stitches.  I love how the cording looks, couched along her shawl and belt.  The beads add some sparkle too.  

I’m really happy this project is finally finished, and I look forward to starting another Dimensions project, but I will sub the aida for sure!