Journey: Day 9 - Is It The End?

Last time you saw this I'd just finished adding the dried river bed and I was considering the next bit to do. I stopped to get the Friday freebie and the usual Saturday Vakje per week made, which meant I got some time to consider what to do next.

The trees I wanted to add didn't work so I added some cacti and rocks instead. The cacti I did with one strand L648 and one strand of L3013 which I used in the needle together to make buttonhole bars. The rocks are colonial knots done in L452. If you look to the left in this photo you will see the two extra blue flowers I added.

Not adding trees meant that the road that was supposed to be covered - or at least given an ending point suddenly was left in the middle of nowhere. This would not do and since I'd already considered lowering the sky that's exactly what I did. I used 2 strands of DMC Color Variations 4160 with DMC 159 as the Color Variations was just pink, yellow and cream and I needed a bit of blue in there as well.

I then went on to add some texture to the central area - I didn't want it completely covered as I really like the way the dye came out and it would be a shame to hide it all. So I used seed stitches in L452, L648, and L3790 it's subtle, as planned, but it's there.

I wasn't completely happy with the woods by the mountain - there were a couple of empty spaces and one of the loops to the right was a bit too large and floppy so I added a couple of extra tree loops to fix that. I then added a bunch of shrubs/rocks/something with colonial knots going all the way down the left hand side adding a few on the other side of the road because in real life roads do not stop vegetation for long. I used DMC L648, L3013, DMC floche 642, and Sajou Retours Du Nord 2703.

At this point I realised the embroidery was more or less finished so decided now was the time to add the beads to the shell as planned. I used TOHO Opaque Pastel-Frosted* Apricot (TR-11-763)

So this is the probable end point of this embroidery. Things I may change:

• Add bigger rocks to the right of the dried river bed.
• Perhaps darken the cacti with a darker green.
• Add some darker blue and some pink to the lowest band of the sky.
• Add a figure.

I'm not sure if you will see this project again, but if I do change anything I will be back with an update. I enjoyed this project but it was also quite a challenge having to stick to a theme/idea instead of just letting things evolve naturally as I have in the past.

The threads chosen for the project

 One thing that is interesting is the difference between the colours I initially chose and the ones I actually used.

The threads actually used

The linen threads were still on skeins at the time of the first photo and on bobbins for the second, but you can see that the colours I ended up using were mostly solids and quite muted really - sun dried almost. The choice of colours one thinks one might use does help feel the way to where you want to go as you have the colours to touch and feel all together in one place.

I will see you on Wednesday with my weekly WIP Wednesday update and Friday with my weekly freebie! Till then... have a good week!