First WIP Pictures of Mother's Love plus my initial thoughts on SMALL stitch counts...

 

Yes! Here it is! The first EVER WiP picture of my design Mother's Love.

As promised I am going to be stitching this design.

There's two reasons.

1. I want to have it on my wall.

2. So everyone can see how one of my designs looks stitched (always a very helpful thing to do when you're trying to sell your designs to people! LOL!)

I designed Mother's Love to be stitched on 25 count fabric, but as I know many people will choose the fabric of their choice I have done the same. I do have a piece of 25 count fabric, but that's reserved for my Paine Free Crafts project.

So, in my stash, I had a recently purchased piece of 22 count, sand-coloured evenweave that's just the right size.

I also think it's a good colour for this design.

But, as anyone who's been reading my blog will know, I've NEVER stitched with a count higher than 18 before.

So I set to work gathering together all the materials (sorry folks, but I'm never going to learn to love doing that! :-) ).

With my new sewing box at hand, I was set and ready to go:

That's the cover page of Mother's Love so everyone can see what my designs print like. I'm really pleased with the look of the cover page - but then, I would be! ;-)

The eagle-eyed of you will notice that there are colours in there that don't match Mother's Love and you'd be completely correct. That's a recent order for another project mixed in too. I'm really pleased how that area fits my thread bobbins perfectly (those are the ones that come with a Leisurecraft Tewkesbury order).

So, Able Stretcher frame (see my Links) ready to go I set to work.

The top of this article is how much I managed to get done. I only stitched for an hour though as it was 9pm when I started and I was already tired - but determined to do SOME stitching!

I can't believe how TINY those stitches are. Even with my magnifying lamp they're small (manageable, but small). Also, for me at least, the delicate nature of evenweave (and linen) has me being very gentle with the stitches. Personally, I prefer the look of linen but the rigidity of aida.

As you can see in the top photo I put a dice in the picture for perspective. That's a standard size dice.

Here's another picture with my finger.

 

Now THAT'S small!!!!

I can't say I enjoyed those first few stitches. I think after the day I'd had squinting at tiny stitches after 9pm was probably not the wisest decision - but I had to do it for my own sanity! LOL!

Right, that's it for today.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog.

I also hope you will keep coming back to look at more of my WiP pictures.

Mother's Love is available from my website HERE.

Below is how she'll look when she's finished:

 

Finally, thank you to Caroline Lord for licensing her wonderful art to me.

You can find more of Caroline's art HERE.