Sunday 12 January 2014

Cross Stitch Collection 232

Apparently, publications are like buses too. This week another magazine is in the shops with my stuff in it; this is the project I`d been working on when I said I was stitching something so stunning, it`d take your breath away when you saw it. Well, unfortunately, I don`t think that`s likely to happen any more - not if you see it in the magazine where, in my humble opinion, it`s been treated rather poorly (it, or its designer, is not even listed among the tags of this issue if you go and check The Making Spot). I think the same thing`s happened as with my glorious pink cushion that ended up looking more like a pincushion in the magazine photos: the props, the angles, even the distance don`t seem to enhance the stitching and while I can understand the attempt at turning it into a tapestry, in keeping with the theme (it is a castle, after all), but I`m afraid they didn`t pull it off. Actually, `pull it off` probably popped in my head because it looks more like a bell pull, or maybe a very ornate tie that somebody left lying on an old briefcase.
***Added on 20 February, for comparison: here`s the original photo the magazine`s photographer took, before the captions were added; on this, the stitching looks a bit bigger and more impressive:
Courtesy of The Making Spot

Back to the original post :) ***
You wouldn`t tell it was an A4-size picture, would you? And yet, it`s a 30x20 cm piece of wall-to-wall stitching. Luckily, I have my progress pictures that will probably (hopefully!) give you a better idea of the detail that Maria Diaz put into this design. So here we go:
4 hours

12 hours

21 hours

31 hours

38 hours

47 hours

And, finally, after 70 hours (photographed on a cushion, hence the lumpiness,
but I didn`t have the heart to put it on the floor!)

2 comments:

  1. I liked this design when I saw it in the magazine but yes, I did think it would be much smaller. It looks about 7 x 9 rather than A4

    It reminds me of my Teresa Wenztler design Among the Clouds which features a castle like this one but with a dragon wrapped around it! A smaller version of her classic The Castle.

    It's nice to see your progress pictures too, shame they don't include some of them in the article and a credit to you too.

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  2. It does look like something out of a fairy tale, doesn`t it? While I was working on it, I kept calling the flowers `poppies` (simply because they`re red and 1. I`m rubbish at botany, 2. I was working on a poppy wreath at the same time), until a friend called them `something roses` (I already forgot the name) and said that it reminded him of the rose bushes growing around Cinderella`s castle. Another friend called it the spitting image of Neuschwanstein Castle, although that doesn`t have water around it, and then there`s Walt Disney`s castle with its blue turrets... and the list goes on. I checked your TW (I didn`t know it before, shame on me!) and it looks stunning! Happy stitching! *waves while pensively shakes head at the thought of her own badly lit photos featured in the magazine, at the same time being grateful for suggestion*

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