After many changes....

a little finish.  I took your advice and used the 729.  Something still wasn't right.  I ended up leaving out a few things, adding snowflakes, giving him cheeks, moving the mouth, changing the colors, and here he is. 

A little skinny pouch to hold a greenery sprig on a cupboard knob.  Only 2 3/4" wide, he's perfect for a little accent.  As with many Santas, I make changes when the stitching is completed, after already making changes, which sometimes is the reason for the final changes.  Get it?  On this one, the face had a backstitched nose, no cheek color, and darker beard (3033 but I used 822).  I didn't see enough contrast so decided to make him more like the PS Santas.  Instead of removing beard and brow and face, I just went over the existing stitches with another color, since there is only a slight variance. 

Beards and light colors never seem to have good linen coverage so this warped method of mine also helps with that.  For the beard, I went over the 822 with white, two strands, only a half cross.  I could have done one strand and full cross but this method creates a little more texture to the beard.  At least that's what I tell myself.  You can see the small section on the bottom right that hasn't been "over stitched" yet.

For the cheeks, I used one strand of 407 over the 3774, full cross.  After removing the two red stitches for his mouth, I filled those in with white and added two red stitches above that, over the existing thread.  I know this is making some of you shake your head but no one - and I mean no one - pays attention to my needlework but me.  Once completed, I can't tell if I over stitched or not, wouldn't remember if I did, and don't really care.  As long as I like the look, it doesn't matter to me how I achieved it.  Does that make me an unorthodox stitcher?  We already know I am, but I'm also reckless and impatient and willing to use flames.  It's best I do what is the least frustrating for the end result.  I don't believe there are any set "rules" for needlework, just basics, techniques, methods, and good judgment.  What I did doesn't fit into any of those categories but I got a sweet Santa sack anyway!

 

So now what?  Another Santa?  A small sampler?  Back to Sally?  Call it quits for a while?  Haven't decided.  Lori's sneak peek of new designs certainly piqued my interest so maybe the spark is still there and instead of setting the flame to my linen, I can ignite my mojo.  A word I never liked.  Mojo. 

 

Thanks for visiting.

Have a great finish to this week.

 

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