2Headed Dragon

I've gotten more work done on the two headed dragon mat. I hope to have this finished by Tuesday so my son can take it when he moves. I'm still learning on how the different cuts change the appearance of a design. This is hooked mainly in 6's cut on the Fraiser, but I had some hand cut 8's? 9's, 10's? that are roughly around 1/4" wide, and then cut a lot of strips in half to make outlines and the shading work. Ideally this design would have really worked better in 3's and 4's to better show the details in it. But I wanted to do this quick so it's not coming out exactly like I thought it would. Maybe if I had enlarged the design 1/3 to 1/2 percent bigger I wouldn't have lost so much detail. The other problem was not having that great of range of colors on hand without hitting the dye pot. I do like how the inner wings are turning out. I'm using a red, teal, yellow and black plaid cut #6. I think it looks good. Still have to work on outlining and shading more.

For Green Cat and Walk Me Dragon I am going to try and do some 6 to 12 shade swatches especially for the lion flowers in Green Cat. To get the coloring and shading I want that might be the only way to do it. I haven't tried dyeing graduated color swatches before so it will be a real test of my dyeing abilities. I want do some of them like sunflowers and some like daisies. Though I might do some cornflowers in blues and pinks to give it a little bit more color. I might do the some of big leaves with pink and yellow edgings. Since white is rather hard to come by in used clothing I finally bit the bullet and am getting a yard of Dorr White so I can do the white daisies and the sunflowers. Though I did luck into a bunch of creams and off white coats and sweaters my last trip to the thrift store but no pure whites though. Did get two more camels, more blacks, grays, blues, burgundy, and some interesting rust and tan plaids.

Most of the creams are going as a background for Walk Me. The original cross stitch had a plain off white/cream background. I am going to attempt to do it in a meander pattern like I have seen other people do for their backgrounds. I have gotten great suggestions and instructions on how to do and how many different colors of fabrics I need to work with from several seasoned hookers. I'll need at least 12 different but close in color as a minimum so I'll keep gathering until I have enough related fabrics. I tried black before for a background for WM but because of the darker greens in it, the dragon fades too much into the background and the design loses it cheeriness and happy feeling to it in my opinion. Sunny blue skies would have worked too but I want to try the cream first. I have designed this for using my new #8 blade which should be getting here soon. GC will be using my new #4 blade and maybe some 6's. When I can buy new blades again I'm going for the #1 and a #3. With the #1 I can do 1/2", 1" and 2" Still need to get back to Folk Angel and finish her.

I did start in on the yard at my daughter's and got some new bulbs planted, cleared out some of the leaves in the beds and planted some spring veggies in the front yard pots. We still have leftover onions going in a few places and I'm leaving them be for now. I've seen some volunteer peas, lettuce and a couple of other vegs and I'm going not bother them. Only 2 of the 6 rose bushes I put in last year have survived. The four that didn't are dead dead. They were cheap markdown ones from Walmart and never really took off anyway. Sons or SIL are going to have to rake and run the lawnmower over the front and back. I'm not really able to this year. My yard work on Tuesday has taken me until today to recover from as I over amp. Maybe if I threaten no Warcraft or Internet for any of them for 2 weeks they'll go do it. We finally had a decent looking yard last year as I killed myself doing it over 4 months time, but then I got busy and the kids didn't keep it up since I quit doing it and now it's back to looking like c..p again. Technically my oldest daughter gave me the house, but youngest with SIL and baby are living in it with me just visiting, working on large craft projects in the backyard, and storing craft junk there for the moment. When they move out I'll move in. Though right now we don't have the money we had last year for me to the gardening I'd like to do. Though I hope we will be able to get some veggie seeds and starter plants so we have a family garden again.