Hansel and Gretel Part 2.5

Hello! And welcome to the second part of Part 2 of our Hansel and Gretel Storybook Series!  This week, I'll show you the finished product of the second panel of four.  Side story: our apartment complex has changed internet providers and we have been without internet at home for this whole week.  So currently, I'm sitting at Starbucks!  Of course, I'm not complaining - I get Starbucks out of the deal!

Here is the final product!  I swapped out some stitches to fit the scale of this project, and to give me a little more practice on different stitches.  Most of the stitches that the author calls for in these pieces are Split Stitch.  And while I've gotten better at these stitches just from doing this project, I'm still not quite proficient enough to work them around small curved lines.  Instead, I used Stem Stitches and Outline Stitches on the rounded or curved areas of the piece.  (For those of you who aren't familiar with all of the different types of stitches - Stem and Outline stitch are the same stitch, but worked in the opposite direction.)  I've found Stem and Outline stitches to be my favorite (so far) when working with curved lines.  I also learned and used the Scallop Stitch on this piece for the embellishments on the edge of the house.  It was fun to learn a new stitch!  Even if it's mainly a variation of the Lazy Daisy Stitch.

I also really noticed a BIG difference in my stitching from the first panel and this one.  Part of it, I'm sure, has to do with that I switched from using three strands of floss to two.  This makes my lines a lot smaller, which makes the whole piece look cleaner overall.  However, I can tell I'm getting better already, which is really exciting!  That's something that I really like about doing embroidery - It's easy to see your progress and improvements over the course of learning this skill.  Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two panels I've done so far!

I'm almost out of this red floss that I've been using, so I think that for the next panel I'll be switching to Pearl Cotton.  It'll be a new experience - I've only used embroidery floss so far!  Thanks for tuning in to this installment of Adventures in Embroidery!  I'm glad you're along for the ride!  Next time, I'll be posting part three of four in the Hansel and Gretel Story!