Master Needlepointer Program of ANG - Stage 2 - 6/26/23

June 26, 2023--I just received the results of my Stage 2 project for ANG's Master Needlepointer Program.  This one was a doozy and required lots of planning on my part.   I am pleased to have received 118 points out of the 120 available.   Here is the end result.....

Some of the requirements for this stage were:

• Shapes other than square or rectangular are required.
• Design must have at least 12 stitch areas, half of which are bounded by at least one curved edge.
• eight of the 12 supplied stitches must be used and must include at least one diaper pattern.
• Color scheme must be either complementary or split complementary.

For the shape, I chose to use Friendship Circles designed by Carol Algie Higginbotham which had to be enlarged to fit the required dimensions on Congress Cloth (commercial designs are allowed).   This appealed to me because of its symmetry.

Then I chose the split-complementary aqua blue colors from Joen Wolfrom's Color Tool.  This was after using my iPad to place various color schemes on the chosen design as drafted (again on my iPad).

The stitches used had to be compensated on all edges since there isn't a straight line anywhere on the project.   Again, I used my iPad to draft out some of the more complex stitches, especially for the Jessica and Waffle stitches used in the center.   In the example below, I was able to draw in the full design, then "erase" the areas not to be stitched.

The diaper pattern used in the center of the outer four circles was from Ann Strite-Kurz's Diaper Patterns book.   It may not be obvious, but the centers of the four outer circles all have the same pattern, but the four colors are used differently.  Again, I used my iPad to draw the various colors on my graph to see if I liked the outcome.  

A darning stitch was one of the requirements and I chose to place it along the outside edge.  Again, I graphed the "donut" darning pattern on my iPad to make sure I liked the scale and pattern.  Can you tell that the threads are all stitched in the same horizontal direction?

That's pretty much it.  A serious challenge for me and I may have been a bit over ambitious in my choice of stitches, but it all worked in the end.