Mrs. Maguire's Garden is in bloom!

Mrs. Maguire's Garden is taking shape. But I gotta tell you-this DMC floss is giving me an extreme headache. I changed the flowers to Ecru because the charted color did not show up at all on my dyed fabric, and the floss is probably 10-15 years old, no kidding. It was soft, silky, and I was able to use the one loop method for starting and each side of the floss laid really nicely, side by side, without any issues at all. The brown I'm using is the called for DMC #869 and the quality is just awful. Using the one loop method leaves me with one SUPER twisty strand, and one thin weak strand. It's the strangest thing. I compared the two flosses together and the new floss is twisted so much tighter than the old floss. Weird.

When I use the two strand starting method, it was a TAD better, but not much. There are areas of dull, fuzzy floss, and it's just not consistent at all. I think I'm going to have to look into replacing some of this new DMC with another brand. Not this go round, but maybe next time I'll just use a conversion to something else for my entire project and see how it goes. And I'm telling you, this 14 count fabric, is not what I remember 14 count to be. At all. OK, that's plenty of complaining for now! Here she is so far.

The fabric is showing quite a bit lighter than it actually is. This is because I am lazy and don't want to take it outdoors (literally 5 feet from me).  ;)

So, there I am for now! Just a quick progress update. I hope everyone is enjoying Spring. It's been crazy weather here in VA with snow one week and 90 degrees the next. UGH!

Mrs. McGuire's Garden in Fits and Starts

Just a quick post to show my progress on Pineberry Lane's Mrs. McGuire's Garden! I love it.

I have started this project on THREE different pieces of fabric! I had originally gotten a piece of PTP 14ct Aida in "Ale", and it was gorgeous, but so so very soft.  I didn't like the floppiness of it and the fabric didn't seem to have any "bite" to hold the floss. Does that make sense? I tried it for a while and decided it wasn't for me.  Then I dyed a piece of Fiddler's a nice brown, but I got to those danged butterfly wings and I messed them up so many times that you wouldn't have believed it. So I decided I wanted to do it so badly I started again.  For all the progress I did on each of those starts, I could have had it done already, lol.   Finally, it's working out.  I do love the pattern so much and I really need to get this done!

And can I just say that all DMC floss colors are not equal? They most certainly are not. I've been stitching a very long time and that brown around the butterfly's wings is #869. I'm just going to be blunt and say that floss quality is NOT GOOD. It took me forever to stitch those things because it would twist, bunch up, and no two threads would lay properly on any stitch I did. Same for the #640, which is the inside of the butterfly wings. UGH!

I'm also using Thread Magic, which is a different floss conditioner than Thread Heaven (this has been discontinued), and I am not thrilled with that either! 

Next post will be of a lot more progress on Mrs. McGuire's Garden hopefully!  Pineberry Lane has so many cute and pretty things I need to stitch!  Until then, have a great week!