A bit more of cloud two

The second cloud is coming along slowly.  It's not been helped by the light at the moment, but then it is November in Yorkshire!  My plan is to have the bottom half of this sampler done by Christmas - so finish off this cloud, the sky in the first cloud, and all the hemstitched borders.  Let's see how it goes!!

Cloud two

After some serious procrastination, I got started on cloud two.  I decided to start on the sky (lost my light grey thread....long story...), and it has gone in fairly quickly.  I'm keeping it mostly one colour so the sky looks quite flat in the background and the cloud will be more shaded.  I have also used full squares and not put half squares to the edges.  I've done this in a few of the blocks I've completed so far and I quite like some of the patterns that have emerged.

Cloud one done!

I finished some stuff!!  I feel like I've been in the middle of doing things for a while now, so it's been good to reach some sort of closure.  This cloud feels like it has taken forever to get to this point.  I have learned a lot in the process, so I think the next cloud will look better for it.  I have finished the canvas stitches, and I think I'm going to move on to the other cloud and leave the pulled work sky to do later.

I have also finished the EPP I was working on.  It was really lovely to be working with something with so much colour while I've been stitching with the whites, greys and blues.

Cloud progress

I think the cloud is starting to come together and look more like a cloud.  I am still offsetting the pattern in each section of cloud, but instead of having nibbly tiny stitches around the edges, I have started to adjust the stitch length to fill the space.  I think this is helping to give it a more organic, cloudy look.

Back to the clouds

The photo is a little bit dark, but I like how it shows the sheen on the thread. It's taken some time to get back into this cloud, but it's been worth it, and now I'm making some progress.  I'm not sure I like the nibbly stitches between each section, but will see how it turns out!

First block hemstitched

I have done most of the hemstitching around one of the blocks.  There is still one side to do on the top edge of the block.   I decided to create a ladder pattern rather than a zig zag, and I'm happy with how it looks.  I am wondering if I can somehow fit in some other patterns in the hemstitch, but as its on the borders they need to be consistent or it will look a bit messy?

Indian ground done

The Indian ground block is finally complete.  The top half is plain Indian ground, the shading is very subtle and I noticed that it was more visible on the back. So the bottom half was stitched back to front.  I also really like how the threads are pulled in the unstitched stripe in the middle.