ShinRa Logo ... Done!!!

After almost six weeks of fervent stitching, my ShinRa Logo is now complete!

You can also view this over on my DA page here:

http://gatchacaz.deviantart.com/art/BLACKWORK-ShinRa-Logo-197112804

Now I'm off to start my next blackwork project!

 

ShinRa Logo - WIP #05

Time for another update with this month's biggie project!

So it's starting to come together now, and this should be a fast stitch as I've pretty much done all the stuff that requires following the chart.

Would be nice to have this finished before the beginning of February but this all depends on how fast I stitch the remaining fills etc...

Picture reference date - 23rd January 2011



 

"WTF????"

Picture reference date - 26th January 2011



See, I have gremlins in the system today - big fat ugly ones!  It takes me THREE attempts to post this bloody picture and then it post's it sideways - I dunno why, I didn't take the picture sideways!!!  If anyone knows how to cure this Blogger madness (before I go insane), please note me!!!

Now I'm off find some coffee to soothe my rattled nerves!

ShinRa Logo - WIP #04

Here we are again ... are you bored with these yet?

Since my last post I've finished the kanji and have almost finished the border on the diamond.  I finished the fills in the top-left square last night and started adding more fills to the diamond area.

Given that I'm never satisfied with my patterns, I've made a few revisions as I've been going along *sigh*

Anyway, here's where I'm up to ...

Picture reference date - 17th January 2011

I've recently finished some other blackwork designs that I'm itching to start so I may take a break from this for a few days - this isn't necessarily a bad thing as it was making me cross-eyed last night!!!!

Well that's all for now, I'm off to stitch!!!

ShinRa Logo - WIP #03

Hi guys!

Well it's been a whole week since my last post.  Wasn't how I planned it, but I wanted there to be some significant progress on this project before I posted again, and also, I have been working on other projects which have kept me away from this.

Anyway, it's coming on and starting to resemble the ShinRa Logo. I've been statying up till quite late to work on this, the border bits are easy to do as I'm not needing to follow the chart.  Once I finish the kanji, I can concentrate on some more of the fill areas.

Picture reference date - 13th January 2011

Picture reference date - 14th January 2011

ShinRa Logo - WIP #02

Here's the next part of the work in progress for my ShinRa Logo.

I've started to add the fills at the top of the diamond, although I didn't do as much as I wanted yesterday because I was charting new projects till one in the morning!!! 

This may explain why my right shoulder is hurting today :-((

Picture reference date - 7th January 2011

ShinRa Logo - WIP #01

Right, that last post made my eyes melt and Blogger's tempramental nature really grates on my nerves!  If the last post seems a little mish-mash, then I apologise - I like things to look right, but Blogger doesn't seem to want to play ball, and I've lost the patience to edit it futher.

Anyway, moving on...

I made a start on this project on January 1st - well, I figured that a New Year deserved a new project, right?

I’ve started with the Kanji in the middle of the design and I plan to do as much of the cross-stitch element first so that I have less counting to do when I start doing the fill patterns.

Here's what I've done so far:

Photo reference date - 2nd January 2011

 

Photo reference date - 4th January 2011



Already looking impressive, no?

Anyway, I promise I won't spam you all tomorrow ... next update hopefully when I start adding the fills!!!

Bye for now! xx

Ambitious Blackwork Project #3

 

WARNING – LONG, IMAGE HEAVY POST!!!

 

Okay, technically that’s a misleading title, because this is actually my fourth blackwork project, but I wanted to stitch this one before the third one so I swopped them round. I may start the other blackwork project soon, but I don’t like having too many large projects on the go at once!

 

So without further a do, I can confirm that the subject matter for this next project is…

 

 

Yes, it’s the ShinRa Logo from Final Fantasy VII!!!

 

***

 

Inspiration for this project came from our dear friend, “Little Mojo” who had a black and white chart on her website. I wanted to have a go at designing this logo myself, but I wanted to do the whole deal, with full lettering, and in colour!

 

I started charting this back in July 2009. I had imported the design into Jane Greenoff Pattern Creator with the plan to use this as a reference for the colours, dimensions etc…  I even started to chart it, but for what ever reason, gave up on it.

 

It wasn’t until September 2010 that I decided to have another crack at this, and that was when I decided to do it as a blackwork project rather than a cross-stitch one. To simplify things I have taken off the lettering but kept the kanji and I also decided to retain the proportions used when I started charting this into the Jane Greenoff software.

 

Here are my original Jane Greenoff patterns:

 

 

From this, I was able to re-chart the design into Pattern Maker quite quickly.

 

As with any blackwork design, you need to select your fill patterns and decide which ones are going where. With this design I have chosen two fills, which are pretty much identical. The inner diamond uses an octagon with squares and the outer square uses the same fill with an additional cross in the middle of the octagon:

 

 

I wanted to feature shading on this design as the same way I had with my lighthouse. If you look at the original design, you will see that both in the diamond and the square, it is darker at the bottom and then lighter at the top - I wanted incorporate that into this design too.

 

Obviously you need to decide what colours you use. For the diamond, I am using red shades no 22, 47 and 46 with an element of blending. The square uses brown shades no 357 and 380.

 

Different thicknesses of thread also help to give the illusion of shading. I have selected different colours on my Pattern Maker palette to represent each colour change so black represents 2 strands of 380, blue represents 2 strands of 357 and so on…

 

And, to help me follow the chart and know where the colour changes, I have split the design up into different areas – it is recommended that you use a colour that will not feature in your final design because you will be deleting it once the design is finished (I used dark pink):

 

 

The kanji lettering in the middle of the design was not easy, in fact it required some tracing of the reference image, which in turn had to be reduced so that the kanji would be the right size for the design.

 

Time consuming but worth it!

 

With the kanji lettering in place, all that remains is to complete the pattern:

 

Doing fill patterns can be quite time consuming and it also requires an element of patience to make sure that the pattern is consistent and error free. It took me several evenings to finish the design, but here is the final chart:

With the chart complete, it’s now time to start getting the materials together, and this is what I am using:

• x1 vintage-cream aida 16” x 13” (purchased from Sew and So
  
• Anchor stranded thread in shades – 2, 22, 46, 47, 295, 298, 304, 357 and 380