South Seas Fiji is Finished

Or is it?  I need a sunny day to take this Dynasty Ornament outside and check to make sure I didn't miss a stitch somewhere and that I covered all the painted palm fronds with stem stitches.  But we've had cloudy, overcast skies for the last two days.  So I did a big scan to see if I found any problems that way and I did not.  Often a scan or a photograph will reveal a cat hair caught in my stitches or a stitch I missed or another mistake that the naked eye just doesn't see.  I've noticed that one becomes so familiar with a piece you just don't notice things, like the fact that my first sky stitch was too big for the piece.  You get used to a piece and stop seeing the details.  That's another argument for a stitch rotation.  Switching back and forth one sees problems a lot better than stitching one piece at a time.   However, I know that I become so focused on a piece that I forget about the other piece in my rotation.  That's why this took two months to stitch.  Most of the time it was waiting for me to finish up Cape Cod Dogs.   So my next piece will probably be a large one that I focus on exclusively until it is done except for time outs to work on Glittering Kimono.  I've started the September stitch there (it's a mystery piece with a new section diagrammed for you each month) and am still working away on May.

While stitching South Seas Fiji, I relearned this lesson about paying attention to our stitching courtesy of Liz Morrow who first mentioned in the Comments that the sky stitch looked too large.  Scale is very important in needlepoint and if Liz hadn't spoken up, I wouldn't have noticed that my sky's too big.  I also relearned the lesson that just because one stitch is lovely (and the original sky stitch, Ming Variation is lovely) doesn't mean it is the right stitch for the piece you are working on.  This lesson was reinforced by the problem I had on the right side of this piece.  I originally did a light coverage couching stitch on the sea foam green parts of the fabric half of this design.  When I added tent stitches to the black areas, they made the sea foam green sections look sunken.  I had to rip out the couching stitches and do something else so that the two halves of the right side of this design were balanced.

In the end South Seas Fiji was all about achieving the right balance of elements in a design.

Please note I have not stitched the top metallic hanger and loop on this piece.  I plan to frame it inside a circular mat so that this area is hidden.  If I can't find the right frame and decide to finish it differently, I'll go back and stitch the area, but if it is going to be hidden in the framing, it is better that it is not stitched.  South Seas Fiji will be put away in the Awaiting Finishing pile for now. The next sunny day I'll take her outside for inspection and the next time I am at the best local frame shop I'll search for the right frame and choose a mat.

I hope you enjoyed stitching the second of my two Dynasty Ornaments by Leigh Designs.  The designer told me that these are created to be fast, easily stitched designs and I've certainly found this to be the case.  Here are the rest of the Dynasty Series to date for your browsing pleasure.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/ImgIdx2h.html

http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp826x.html

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
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