Along the Turquoise Trail

A stitching friend of mine was asking me about a project she had seen on someone's blog called TURQUOISE TRAIL and wondered if it was one of my designs. Yes, indeed. It's one of my "Impressionist Collection" designs, and I designed it to highlight a southwestern color scheme. My TURQUOISE TRAIL design looks like this:


One of my favorite techniques (which I find endlessly fascinating to play around with) is to stitch the same pattern in different weights of threads (thick and thin) and see what the contrast looks like. Here's the top right corner of TURQUOISE TRAIL -- see how the same pattern looks totally different depending on which type of thread you use?


The "thick" pattern (done in #5 pearl cottons) would look great as a dense filler pattern, let's say a Santa's coat, for instance....while the "thin" version would look as a great background pattern on a painted geometric canvas perhaps.

And here's another trick that's hidden in this design: the center cross motif. When I was stitching up this design, I left the center cross unstitched, waiting to figure out how to finish off the focal point of the whole design. Here's what I finally did:


I used one ply of the variegated thread, and just stitched long diagonal stitches to fill in the cross shape. I tried to create mirror images of each opposing section, carefully using the same thread colors in each section, to create an echo effect. I then filled in the rest of the center with simple diamond borders, finishing up with a small Rhodes Star in the center. I could also have put a jewel in the center, if I wanted a sparkly center. What amazed me, after I stitched this cross, was how three-dimensional it looked, all due to the variegated thread - and that was a complete surprise, but a very pleasant one, I must admit!

(Oh, and if you're curious to view another version of my TURQUOISE TRAIL and see how another stitcher totally changed the color palette (she chose gold and raspberry), look at the STITCHLADY'S WEBLOG, and click on her WIP project box, then scroll down to TURQUOISE TRAIL to see her photo & progress.)

(P.S.: If any of you stitchers out there have stitched this design in different colors, please send me photos...I would love to post them for other interested stitchers to oogle!)