Shadow Moon

I finally have a project to share - and it's one I am absolutely in love with.


Shadow Moon



This is a piece by Hands On Design. When I saw it the first time, I knew I wanted to stitch it. I actually had the photo saved to my computer for over a year before I finally looked about for it and decided to sit down and get this thing made.


I started about a week ago, when the most perfect fabric arrived - 'Haunted' by Picture This Plus. It not only has the best name for this project, but the colour is wonderful too!


This is the first time I'm actually using overdyed threads for anything. O.O Black thread (DMC 310) is always a pain to stitch with over large areas, because it's always thinner than other DMC threads (due to the dye & dying process) and doesn't cover as much fabric. You usually have to use more than two threads to accomplish the same coverage as other threads do with just two, so I decided to go ahead and give overdyed a shot on this one since there is so much black to be worked.


The picture for 'charcoal' - the recommended thread - wasn't all that appealing, so I got 'mascara' instead. Unlike the photo currently there, it's not purple at all, but a very nice black. I do love working with it: knock on wood, but it tangles so much less than any thread I've ever worked with before (seriously, like one or two tangles this whole project, really easy to untangle). It doesn't knot up, and lays a lot flatter on the fabric.


This latter point was really illustrated when I got out a regular DMC for the row of orange. Using two threads came out so bulky and wonky looking I had to rip it out - using just one thread doesn't look bad though!


This got me worried about the moon, since I was originally planning to do the moon with DMC. I've got the 'official' threads coming in the mail - 2 of Chalk and 1 of Moonlit Path. I'm not going to risk it!!

Mascara is pretty nice, but it still does lay a little sparse. If I did this again, I would probably mess around with trying out three threads, or stitching very, very loosely. As it is, I've no idea how much spare thread I'll have at the end of this project and can't get more very quickly, so I'll stick with what I'm doing.

It's actually working up much smaller and quicker to stitch than I thought it would be. Doing one post at a time, vertically, really helps.


Also!! Got 'Sarsaparilla' - the brown, slightly variegated thread for the Not Forgotten ship! Another first, so it'll be fun to get started on that, though it will certainly wait until after this marvelously Halloween piece is finished.

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