Two more Stitching Finishes.

 Mosey and Me's contribution to the 2006 Indy Town Square series, The Book Shop.  This piece called for Anchor floss of which I have very little in my stash.  So I decided to go upscale and stitch it entirely in Belle Soie on 28ct Meditation linen, a pale blue overdyed fabric.  My substitutions are as follows: Icing for #2, Old Crow for #403, Wheatgrass for #831, Cabbage Patch for #875, Collard Greens for #876, Creme de Menthe for 878, Wheatgrass for 886, Ocean Tide for #1035, Chocolat for #1050, Bahama Breeze for #9159 and Cranberry for GAST Rhubarb.  I realize my version makes for a somewhat darker shop than was charted but I always think of bookshops and libraries as having the colors of an old English gentleman's club: rich, elegant deep tones.  At least, if I owned a bookshop, that's the way I would paint it.  I particularly like the roof, made to look like an open book laid down in a spine destroying manner of which I would never be guilty ... but a clever conceit nonetheless.

JAB Co Button Shop.  I didn't order the button pack as charted since I have a fairly extensive collection of buttons, having inherited both my mother's and my grandmother's button jars.  I found replacements that suited my purposes.  And as to the fibers, I did have more than half of the recommended WDW colors in my stash and substituted near-matches from my stash of WDW and GAST for the remainder.  I changed the colors around a bit though.  The WDW Whitewash storefront is now WDW Collards to match the roof and provide better contrast for my  mother-of-pearl buttons.  The WDW Raspberry door and gutter trim are now WDW Whitewash to compensate for removing the white from the storefront.

The Primitive's Shop

I think this is my favorite so far.  The over-one display window is a fabulous touch.  Though I will admit that it was something of a mystery stitch since I'd never seen a model photo.  The doll, candlestick and stars were perfectly obvious on the chart.  The rectangle in the center was a bit more difficult but I eventually realized it was going to be a painting of a house.  But the little red hen in the lower corner only revealed itself when fully stitched.  Seen only as black symbols on a white page, there was no way I could figure out  what was coming.

Finished one more

Sorry for the dark indoor photo but if I wait for sunshine it could take weeks.  The sun is playing games with me, shining brilliantly until I pick up a camera and then  ... well, by the time I have got the shot set up, it is miserably overcast again.  

I did a bit of changing here, eliminating the Est. 1990 sign which I thought broke up the brick wall in a particularly unattractive fashion, pretty much splitting the building in two separate visual halves.  I also switched out some of the greys for WDW greys I had on hand rather than the ones called for which would have required a purchase.  And finally, instead of doing the glass in the called for Taupe like the roof, I stitched it in Hydrangea: a blue to white colorway that gave the kinds of shadowy look you really see when looking at windows.