Wednesday, October 18, 2006

CQ Heart for my Sister: trial and error

The other night I had a horrible time with this heart for my sister, Joyce. I wanted to do some pretty folded roses and a button trail but nothing was working right and it would always be way too overboard, in frustration I again laid out what I thought would look good and was telling my hubby that the middle is empty if I do that and I need something there like an image or a monogram and then it hit me! Just do a monogram! So I looked through my favorite book for inspiration. I'm going to fill in the thick area's with the stain stitch too. I found this 'J' and traced it with tracing paper and pinned the paper down and worked the stem stitch with 1 strand DMC floss. Then I laid out the embellishments again to see how I may do it and took this photo. This isn't the final of what I'm going to do but at least I now have an idea that I'm happy with. Do you all think your eye flows over the heart well? Do you have any suggestions for improvement? I've been debating with myself about maybe adding a trail for the flight path of the butterflies up top. I'm not sure if it would help or just detract from the 'sisters'. I really love this heart and I don't want to mess it up! I want my sister to have an heirloom!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your heart looks great. Because the monogram is delicate (and I know
you said you were going to add some satin stitch to it), I'd probably go
a little bit lighter on the button trail below. Perhaps not quite so
many of the thicker objects. I love the green piece of lace on the
right side, though. Overall, your heart says "delicate and dainty"
except that one area with the three roses right together. Oh, and maybe
your butterflies want to pretty flowers to fly towards?

Melissa said...

Janet,
Thank you so much!
I agree, the bottom roses and button trail are still too heavy.
Should I just let the folded roses go? I really wanted to have them
there but they are just seeming too big! Don't you hate that when you
really want to incorporate something and it just doesn't work? I may have to just switch to some 7mm spiderweb roses. Okay about the top with the butterflies and 'sisters', I was scared to put some flowers because I don't what them to look like they are floating in the sky just out there. Any suggestion on how to get that
without the floating?

Anonymous said...

Well, it's best not to force it. If you are struggling to incorporate
something because you really like it, but can't make it work, the
perhaps it's best to let it go. Just think of it as having some roses
ready to use for another project. I would go with flatter and
smaller roses, or leave the roses out and go with smaller buttons and
more beads. Remember that you do have roses in the other cluster in the
upper left.

As for something for your butterflies, you could make a vine to twine
around the letters nearby, and then add a couple of small blossoms, or
you could put a few blossoms on the ends of the green lace. The
butterflies don't have to be sitting right on the blooms.