{"id":6375,"date":"2019-10-31T12:43:36","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T12:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/?p=6375"},"modified":"2019-10-31T12:43:36","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T12:43:36","slug":"making-it-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/making-it-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Making It Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been so much to write about in the past weeks that I’m just now realizing it was all the way back on September 19th<\/a> that I last made any reference to the piece that is currently in the works. Time to \u00a0bring you up to speed.<\/p>\n

\"ChessKing1\"

Progressing from bottom to top<\/p><\/div>\n

The various issues that were dogging me<\/a> in the beginning have since ironed themselves out, so I’m at the point now where it’s more a matter of putting in the time to get the piece done. I will undoubtably be circling back to polish up this first side, but for now I’m roughly halfway to the finish line and hope that the piece as a whole will progress more quickly. But that said, hand-stitching is not speedy work.<\/p>\n

\"ChessKing2\"

I’ve used this stitch a fair amount. I like the way it fills a space without letting it become too static. For another example, look at my banner photo above.<\/p><\/div>\n

As is often the case, fortuitous discoveries tend to develop out of necessity, and this piece is no exception. As I was methodically stitching the main figure of the chess king, it didn’t take long to realize that I wouldn’t have enough of the colors I’d chosen to complete the checkerboard pattern within it. Whenever my work is going smoothly and I’m on a roll, I really hate interrupting the process to go out for more supplies. Therefore, I’m much more likely to search for (in the words of Project Runway’s Tim Gunn) a “make it work” solution that will allow me to keep going.<\/p>\n

\"ChessKing3\"

Now that I’ve told you my secret about the color variety in this central figure, don’t be surprised if you see me using the same device again.<\/p><\/div>\n

So what you’re seeing above are the results of that hiccup. Rather than just the two thread colors originally planned, I’ve used a variety of six. And frankly, I think doing so has brought life into the figure that would have been missing otherwise.<\/p>\n

\"ChessKing

Onward and upward — the queen will soon be appearing within the blue arch.<\/p><\/div>\n

You can’t arrange for these kinds of issues \/ solutions ahead of time, but they do seem to regularly present themselves. Invariably that’s a good thing. To a large extent that explains why I try not to plan a piece too far in advance or to be too married to a particular outcome. Kismet is often much smarter than I am.<\/p>\n

\u2756<\/span><\/h1>\n

Words to live by:<\/em>
\nI just started reading Carol Marine’s \u00a0Daily Painting<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. Although I haven’t gotten very far into it, I like it very much so far. In Chapter One she talks about writing a letter to portrait artist Michael Shane Neal<\/a> for advice. He wrote her back with a lot of helpful information, but finished the letter with what Marine characterizes as the best advice she’d ever receive.<\/p>\n

“The best way to improve your skills is to do some kind of art every single day.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There has been so much to write about in the past weeks that I’m just now realizing it was all the way back on September 19th that I last made any reference to the piece that is currently in the works. Time to \u00a0bring you up to speed. The various issues that were dogging me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,862],"tags":[1086,1085,1088,1087,1089],"class_list":["post-6375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","category-textiles-and-drawings","tag-carole-marine","tag-chess-king","tag-daily-painting","tag-michael-shane-neal","tag-work-in-progress"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5kO5z-1EP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6398,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6375\/revisions\/6398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elizabethfram.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}