OhSewCrafty Blog

• Pattern: Elevenses by Fiddlesticks AU via Etsy, partial color conversion by yours truly
• Materials: 28 ct cashel “Salem” by Colour & Cotton, DMC
• Size: 9.1″ x 11.3″
• Time to stitch: 4 days (please keep in mind those were all days where I was trying to rack up large stitch counts for challenges, etc, and I stitched for several hours, typically

This pattern caught my eye since my family jokes about my son having hobbit-esque eating habits.  I decided to start it when I needed something “easy” to stitch quickly, for challenges.  

Well, the pattern is fine, each phrase is a single color and the model was stitched on black.  Most of the lines touch, or nearly touch at one point so lots of crazy counting across empty fabric is not required.  However, it was necessary to modify some of the colors due to my fabric, more about that below.  Of course a little frogging was involved.  I also wound up backstitching the last line, since the color I chose, while exactly what I wanted, failed the “3 foot test”.

As for materials, I heard so much positive buzz about Colour & Cotton on Flosstube, I took advantage of Angela’s black Friday sale last year to try a few pieces.  Salem has a lovely dusty chalkboard effect, dark grey with a purple undertone. The floss toss was successful.  

But when I got into the bottom half of the chart, 3041 for Afternoon Tea disappeared into the fabric.  3803 for Dinner seemed too bright and saturated compared to all the other colors.  522 for & Supper seemed rather dull, I wanted to use a blue instead.  I wound up using 155, 3687, and 3807 after a false start with 799.  Then the 3807 failed the 3 foot test, so I backstitched the line with 794 (2 shades lighter per the DMC color card).  It did occur to me perhaps I should have used 794 for the whole line, but I really wanted a “twilight” blue, which 3807 suited perfectly, and 794 did not.  Now it almost looks like a lit sign, glowing in the darkness.  

I’m quite pleased with it overall and look forward to hanging it up in my kitchen.  I’m thinking of a weathered white wood frame, to suit the Victorian aesthetic of the space.