I've been stitching away on this Tapestry Fair birdhouse from Pat Scheurich. The background is all in basketweave using two strands of JL Walsh silk-wool. But as you can see in the above photo, I'm running out of thread. JL Walsh is discontinued, so I can't get more of it. What to do?
First step, rummage in stash. I have a ton of threads, so it's possible I have another skein of the JL Walsh. No, I don't have another, but I have a skein of silk/wool from Felicity's Garden that appears to be an exact color match. Because both threads are silk/wool blends, they will work well together. Instead of two strands of the JL Walsh, I'll need to use one strand of the Felicity's Garden because the latter thread's fatter, but this will work.
The Felicity's Garden thread is at the top of this photo, laying on the JL Walsh background. If you look at the top photo, I bet you can't tell where I stopped using the JL Walsh and started using the Felicity's Garden.
I also pulled a bunch of greens in my stash of JL Walsh, which you also see above. Why? Look at the canvas again. It's a birdhouse against a blue sky. I can minimize how much blue background I need by adding a support pole under the birdhouse and by adding green grass to the lower background.
It's not the end of the world if you run out of threads. Just look at your stash and the design and come up with a plan to manage the background to account for what threads you do have. There's a lot you can do besides ripping out and starting over.
Which is against my religion.
Here is how the canvas ended up. I think it turned out well, despite my running out of background thread.
P.S. I stopped using the blue JL Walsh I was running out of and started using the blue Felicity's Garden about one bird charm length from the top of the roof on the left side. It was a perfect match!
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