Let the stitching begin! I searched and searched and found a lap quilting hoop that I really liked. As luck would have it, Luna found it before I could use it. I like this hoop because it sits flat on my lap and has a sturdy 14 inch hoop attached. I don't have to fudge with adjusting an angle and it has plenty of room to put one hand underneath.
As I started stitching, I found one challenge--my silk twist quilting thread is either too thick or too twisty to successfully thread my tiny betweens needles that I prefer to sew with. I even have the John James big eye quilting needles but this thread won't go through the eye. I bent one using a wire needle threader. I went with a size 10 embroidery needle which was nice and thin but longer than I prefer and that worked fine until I broke both of my wire needle threaders threading that. I switched to a size 7 embroidery needle which has worked fine. I'm going to have to experiment with some other brand needles and different threaders. The longer needles are fine for stitching the figures because I'm not loading the needle with multiple stitches. So many of the stitches change direction every stitch or two so it's a matter of literally sewing one stitch at a time anyway.
Here you can see the structure of the thread itself.
As luck would have it--I received some new needles today--size 10 betweens by Bohin--along with 2 new Clover wire threaders. They work perfectly! The eye on the Bohin needles is wider than my usual John James so problem solved!
Here are a few pics of what I've done so far:
From the border:
Some of the figures in the squares above the border:
I'm really enjoying stitching these little figures. I think had I gone with my first design plan--a featured braid for a border and diamonds, I would've gotten incredibly bored. I'm enjoying the fact that each day brings different designs to stitch. It was more work to plan and mark but much more enjoyable to stitch!
