Hello all, Part 2 went quickly and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I found the gold beads in the corners a little large and left them on the diagonal while trying to work open the jessicas there so the bead would slide in. I'm tempted to go back and pull out the beads and replace them with a french knot or something, I think a dark center would contrast nicely. Overall I think the border is very pretty I could see using it to band a hand towel. Those of you who have stitched this what did you end up doing for the third (smallest) petals in the corners. The pattern called for a color not on the materials list and I didn't have anything in my stash between the cream I ended up using and the next yellow petals. I think the three colors look fine but aren't what was written.
Part 2 before beads and after:
As for the first part I did rip out the doorway and try a dense rhodes, a satin stitch, a different black thread and a few other things. Of course I was trying to avoid frogging the gold back-stitching through it all. I did go with the dense rhodes and am pretty happy with the effect. Thank you again for your feed back.
Part 3 is under way with the north moon gate. I love moon gates in real life and these four vignettes were definitely part of what drew me to this piece. I'm looking forward to stitching them. Can't wait to see what the rest of you are accomplishing. Especially the Zen Moss Garden, that might be on the list for next!
