A Changed World – Planning

When that wonderful enabling friend Judy at Patchwork Times posted a new chart she had received – A Changed World – I fell in love with it and knew I needed to stitch it – yes NEEDED to. 🙂   And she listed where she got it so in a flash I had it ordered and it arrived earlier this week and told her I might stitch along with her when she planned to start on it.  Then Judy introduced me (via email since we are all in different states) to Jo, who is a quilter, cross stitcher, blogger at Jo’s County Junction. Jo had emailed Judy about starting it along with her too so a trio of stitchers was formed. 🙂    We plan a very laid back stitch along since we’re all busy and have lots going on and other projects in the works but we plan to start stitching on this one on the same day and who knows when we will each finish but the fun is in the journey.

Here’s the chart.  The phrase at the top of the chart says it all.  I love everything about this chart -motifs, colors, layout.  Well I don’t exactly love the black box around the phrase at the bottom.  I will wait and see when I get to that point in stitching to decide (1) if I just change it from black background to some other color since the black seems really stark to me and totally draws my eyes right to that spot first and not to the rest of the design or (2) what I’m leaning towards –  is leaving out the black box background stitching and changing the color of the lettering so it will show up  better without the box stitched around it.    I’ve already decided I will start this one in the middle since I want to make the section with the houses first.

So we plan to start on this project on August 1.  We will all be posting progress on our individual blogs on Fridays as we go along so if you are interested you can do a little blog hopping to see how we are each doing.  Some weeks there may be progress, others not so much since I do have other projects to work on and some Christmas stitches to do.   If you are planning to stitch this design, please think about joining in with us and getting that chart ordered and supplies lined up.  I got my chart at  the Silver Needle, but I have also see it on Kitten Stitcher and some places are taking preorders because shipments are just arriving as it’s a new release.

I know Judy is stitching on linen and I think Jo is a linen stitcher also.  I’ll be stitching on Aida – I need to hit the stash to figure out what fabric I’ll be using.  Judy is using silks, I’m using DMC or will substitute some hand dyed colors in when I get to pulling colors, and Jo may still be undecided as to what she’ll use.   We are all very excited to have planned a start for this project.     And if you check out Jo’s blog post about this project she posted today – also check out the other Scarlett House project she completed – Seeking Refuge.   It’s beautiful.  I have that chart and it was going to be the next one I started, but it will have to wait until after A Changed World is done.

As for now – you know I’m working on two patriotic stitches.  I managed to finish the stitching for one of them during lunch today since it was a work from home day.  Here’s the top of the “birthday cake” for Happy Birthday America.

The wings of the bird are done in Smyrna Crosses so although they are stitched in the same color as the rest of the bird they stand out separately (and are fun to do).

As you can see from the photo below – I chose a darker fabric to stitch on compared to the pattern called for fabric.

 

My “cake” will look like it is chocolate – or brushed with a layer of cocoa across the top.  I also changed several flosses since I needed them to be a bit darker to show up on my chose fabric – 18 ct Spice Aida by Picture This Plus.  Spice seems to be an aptly named color of fabric for a project that’s supposed to look like a birthday cake.  I had thought I might try to get this all assembled over the weekend but I’ve got other stuff I want to do then but hopefully will get it done before the end of the month.  Since I’m still not going into stores and red is a hard color to try to match on line, I ordered blue paint to use for the base and leg of the “cake stand.”

So tonight I’ll be  back to stitching on Free & Brave which I previously showed a start of – and I’m still working on the many rows of windows in that house.