I managed to overcome my counting problem with the copper mirror image of the purple petal shapes yesterday. The next step is to put bow tie shapes between the petals and mirror image of them and tie them down with another thread. Then you fill the corners with a latticework tied down with cross stitches.
Now to the threads used--my colors are violet (A), black (B), terracotta (C) and copper metallic (D). The bow ties are done in C6 which is a pale terracotta Frosty Rays #Y332 for me and tied down with B9 which is my black Neon Rays N01. Tony has you bring up the tie down thread in the hole between the two mirror imaged petal areas, then put in the bow tie. To end you sink the tie down thread in the same hole it came up it. It's a neat way of helping you find the hole under the bow tie's middle.
The corner latticework is where I went off the rails, deviating from Tony's recommended threads of B10 and A1. I wanted to use a thinner base thread so some of the bare canvas terracotta color shows, so I switched to B2 (Gold Rush 18 color #BD31C) for the framework underneath and tied it down with the A1 I am supposed to use (which is Impressions 6043, a darker violet than the center violet).
So far the Marlon block is more raised than the top layer of stitches, but Mr. Brando was a Big Boy, wasn't he? I included as much of the top row as I could squeeze in so you see how the whole design looks so far. There are two more steps to go but they both involve layers of stitches so I expect I will be working on this for 2-3 more days.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
