Pattern/Technique: Mushroom Monogram by Moody Green Embroidery
Modifications: I was feeling lazy so instead of doing stem and chain stitch I did a simple backstitch with 6 strands of floss
Materials:
Chanterelle: 729 (Medium Old Gold) Blue pinkgill: 4240 (Midsummer Night) Red pinkgill: 4210 (Radiant Ruby)
Backing fabric: Purl Soho Daily Linen in Natural
New skills: n/a
Lessons: I used a larger hoop while working on the piece then moved it to a smaller hoop when finished which worked really well and let me stitch all the way to the edge.
Initially I tried tracing the design directly on the linen using a clover chako marker but this didn't work well for a few reasons: the linen shifted a lot while tracing, the intricacy of the pattern made it impossible to differentiate between the thinly spaced lines, and I used a white screen on my laptop as a makeshift lightbox but kept activating the touch interface. I abandoned this approach and instead traced the pattern on interfacing which worked much better.
Using an actual tearaway interfacing or dissolvable interfacing will make life way easier. I used a lightweight fusible interfacing because it was what I had on hand but it was kind of a nightmare to tear away. It also might be worth trying printing the pattern directly on a sheet of tearaway (IIRC, Sulky makes printable interfacing sheets).
What I'd do differently: I'm pretty happy with this.
Care: spot clean
