Having had a break from using up the aran weight cotton whilst I finish my British Sheep Breeds project I need to get back to working on using it up as I still have a lot left. I have recently ordered some more in colours that I can use as a colour that ties all the other colours together so I have a new batch of white and a new batch of ecru for that purpose.
I found a pattern that I liked that uses 12 colours plus a main but its for a huge bed throw so I am going to make it but in a smaller size and I've chosen to start with the various pinks, purples, reds and one peach that I have in my left-overs.
I made 5 centres in each colour, giving me 60 and then added round two, 5 of each colour across the 60 and then the same for round 3. I made a list and worked it out so that two similar colours were not next to each other and that no two motifs were the same, some are similar but not exactly the same.
I had all the motifs in piles of 5 based on the centre colour. To work out placement of each motif I first decided on configuration of the final item and decided on a 6 x 10 formation, which then means that the piles of motifs need to be in two rows of 6 to begin with. I then arranged them by centre colour, light, dark, light, dark, light, dark and then second row dark, light, dark, light, dark, light and then made sure the colour type were well spread.
Leaving the bottom motif where it was I then took each pile from the first row and placed it in the third row but dropping it down by one motif and I done this for each pile in turn, row by row until all 60 motifs were out. Then I had the task of making sure that no two motifs next to each other had the same colour last row and if I did I find that then I always swapped with another with the same centre colour and I kept going until I was happy with that and then done a check on the middle round and took whatever swaps steps were necessary there. The final step was just to make sure that there weren't large patches of red or purple or whatever in one place and that as best as possible that all colours were are evenly spread out as feasibly possible. Once happy I used some of the safety pins that I had bought for the British Breeds Project and I connected each motif in place using one of the chain spaces to make sure they didn't get mixed up.
When it came round to the joining of the motifs I tried to follow the pattern but it didn't work out for me, depending on how you read it you either end up with 5 "corners" or 3 "corners when it should be 4 corners on each motif so I ended up doing the pattern but figuring out the repeats myself. The instruction for how to handle corner joins was there in the pattern notes but not in the instructions where it was needed and it took me a while to find it and figure it out and I made sure that all the joins were in the same format, like when you do cross-stitch you make sure all the bottom stitches face the same way and the top stitches all face the opposite way to the bottom so that you have a smoother, neater finish.
There was no finishing edging in the pattern, which I think is weird for something like this so I found one myself and added it all the way around. Three rounds, starting with a base round, then a round of V stitches and finally the shell with picot edging, with a special version for the corners.
The photos above show it finished but before blocking and the lower one shows it pinned out blocking to shape. I haven't gotten any decent photos of it yet, I need to figure out how I want to show it off but I will get them when I can.
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