Sunday, June 24, 2012

Butterflies

Butterflies have got to be one of God's most delightful creations!  We have sadly been seeing less of them this year than in other years.  I think it might have something to do with the hard frost we had about 2 months ago.  The warm spring weather came so early this year & everything was blooming & growing before it should have been & then wham!  I can only assume the frost is to blame.  I'm not even seeing very many of these lovelies flying around my butterfly garden!  When I do see one it's a special treat & I had just such a treat yesterday morning ... not in my butterfly garden but on one of our butterfly bushes   : )



I never tried photographing a butterfly before & it was quite a feat!  I'm sure I took at least a dozen photos.  I'm thankful I was able to get these 3 clear ones   : )

My thanks to everyone who offered their help regarding stitching with variegated thread.  I will tell you that I stitched one small each day for a total of 3 days.  The same small.  Needless to say the design is a quick stitch    : )   I first stitched using the loop start method which did not provide a good result & thus the reason for my asking for help.  My next attempt was completing one stitch at a time using 2 strands of floss & making sure the colors matched up along the strands.  The provided a more variegated effect but it still didn't look quite right.  This design is 90% lettering ... small letters at that ... with a little something in between 2 of them.  Most of the letters were wide enough apart that I had to end the stitching on one letter & then start anew on the next letter.  This made me end with, for example, a very light pink on one letter & then suddenly a very dark pink on the next. It just didn't look right.  For my third attempt I thought I would be more attentive to the blending.  When I ran out of floss I then got 2 more strands but I turned them around so that instead of ending with light blue & starting with dark blue I'd just segue from light blue to light blue.  The idea was that you wouldn't be able to tell I had started a new thread at all!  Unfortunately this ended up giving a bookends look to my stitched piece with dark blue at the ends & light blue in the center.  I decided I should have stuck with my original thought & used plain ol' DMC.  That is what I'll do when I attempt to stitch this design for the fourth time (argh!) but that's not going to be anytime soon.  I don't want to look at it again for a while ... lol!  I also didn't have the "oomph" to get started on another stitched piece last night so instead I decided to knit.  Being a bit apprehensive about jumping right in & knitting something "good" I decided to re-familiarize myself with the basics by knitting a dishcloth.
Unfortunately the stripey yarn I had on hand was not the best choice for this basketweave pattern but I'll continue along with it.  It's just a dishcloth after all   : )   I'm happy to say that the casting on, knitting & purling came back to me very easily.   I'll complete this cloth & then dive into something wearable.  Oh wait ... I just remembered that I joined a knitting exchange & I need to make something knitted for the person assigned to me.  This ought to provide fodder for quite a few posts ... lol!

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!  John & I are supposed to go to a daylily show this afternoon in Lexington. Only time will tell if we actually venture out into the mid-90 temperatures to do this.    

10 comments:

Mouse said...

ooooo gorgeous butterfly :)
mmmm how about you try stitching as you would do normally with the variagated threads ??? sometimes that gives a better effect or just do different letters not follow on ... does that make sense ???

and cute stripy dishcloth too :)
hope you have had a fab weekend :) love mouse xxxxx

Earlene said...

That is a wonderful shot of that butterfly!! Thanks for sharing.
Just this week I started to see more. and lots of lighting bugs!
Hugs
Earlene

Anonymous said...

Lovely butterfly photos, wish we had those beautiful ones where we live!
I love your knitting!

Vickie said...

Oh my! That butterfly is beautiful, haven't seen that one around. Enjoy the daylily show! :)

butterfly said...

OH you took a photo of me how nice. Don't I look pretty.! ha.
Great photos again what a beauty that butterfly is.

Great knitting.

Enjoy the Lily show, hugs.

butterfly said...

OH you took a photo of me how nice. Don't I look pretty.! ha.
Great photos again what a beauty that butterfly is.

Great knitting.

Enjoy the Lily show, hugs.

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

It's good to experiment!
I like the DMC variegateds but do find they don't change colour enough along one length. I do what you tried - starting from the "matching" end when I start the 2nd length.

Chris said...

Lovely butterfly pics. I have not seen a lot of them on my butterfly bushes this year yet. I have seen some hummingbird moths :)
I can't wait to see picks of your variegated thread pieces. And your variegated dishcloth finish :)
Have a great week!

♥ Nia said...

Beautiful butterfly :)

TheCrankyCrow said...

Wonderful catch of that gorgeous butterfly!! That first photo is amazing! I don't believe I've ever seen a butterfly like that here....we just usually see monarchs...and moths....tons of moths....Glad the knitting came back to you.... Smiles & Hugs ~ Robin