Beautiful Threads!! (and the Ornament Continues)

First - good news! I remember while working on the Coral Reef ornaments, and using threads from the stash I had bought from Sharon B. of Pin Tangle, that I was hoping she would soon show more of her gorgeous hand dyed threads on the ArtFire store - and now she has.

I waited, of course, until I had bought what I wanted (I used restraint) before calling attention to it, as I saw it on her blog post yesterday. For anyone who doesn't follow this blog - it is delightful, informative, and inspirational for any of the fiber arts.

I'm especially enjoying the packages of threads as they are, as it's like having a stash of exotic and;/or useful and beautiful threads to choose from for my needlepoint projects that aren't like most of what's available in the shops. Also, there are built in color schemes in some of them. Do go take a look at Pin Tangle, and click on the link to Sharons Artfire store.

Next, the ornament: I had to take the big bright button off after all, as it was even more obnoxious after two days of not looking at it than it was when hid it from myself. I simply substituted a simple "woven" grid with #8 Holographic braid (Kreinik, of course). Then made a bit more progress on other parts. It's almost finished - and I'll do this as ideas occur for the last few small areas.

It's amazing how bright/white the YLI Ribbon floss (or any thread) looks when worked with long stitches, so the light strikes more surface. The background, the light being broken up by basketweave stitches, looks darker and duller, but what I needed to best display the look of the Memory Thread and metallic. I started a new one yesterday - another of my "traditional ornament shapes."

I decided it would be a good idea to make it red, but using the needle blending, starting with DMC floss #321. However, the stitch I'm using - my version of T-stitch - is letting some background show through, so I'm in process of ripping out and using a different stitch.

Basketweave would be too flat and dull looking for the surface. I could have painted the canvas red first, but was too lazy to do so. More on this another time, unless I decide to abort the mission and do something else.