Hard at work as usual

It's been a while since I've had a moment to catch us up on the events in the Village.  Things have been very busy.  The holidays are always a time for gathering and family.  Everyone in the village stitched and ate and visited and enjoyed.  There was laughter and presents and joy for everyone.

And in the meantime work continued and projects moved along at their own pace.  For myself, I have somewhat of a timeline.  Two of my close friends from another village have announced their intention to wed. Which is lovely.  As they have lived together for more than 10 years it would seem this is not a hasty decision and I'm projecting that the marriage will last. :)

In the meantime as the stitcher in the group it falls on me to make the Wedding Sampler.  In looking for a pattern I had certain criteria in mind:

They are having a non-traditional wedding - no church, hand fasting, ceremony in the middle of the reception, everything in cream/grey/black with splashes of red, no flowers just curly willow and hundreds of candles.  Very Victoria ala Edward Gory.  So I needed a pattern which was Victorianesq and I needed the colors to be cream/grey/white.  The brides engagement ring is red gold with black diamonds and I wanted the color scheme to match that so I wanted the fabric to reflect the red gold.  I ended up special ordering this from ColorScapes.  It's Aurora and 40ct.  The fibers are silk and a mix of NPI, Gloriana and Bell Soie.  Once all the stitching is done there are a ton of beads that go with it and I had to find those in petites because of the stitch count.

And of course, this is nothing like the colors that is charted as you can kind of see from the chart picture.  But I'm really excited that it is turning out and it is less painful to do than I thought it would be.  See, I often have these grand ideas, get everything ready, then think "What am I thinking?!!  I can't do this!!!".  However, this time I can and hopefully I will get it done in time for the wedding.  Not that they will mind.  They will just be happy to have it.  They have seen it in progress and are delighted.  There's just something in me that wants to get it back from the framers, wrapped, and on the presents table on the fateful day. Which is March 4, 2011.

So I'm putting my head down and continuing to stitch.....