Tug O' War

stitching is complete. I just love this Jean Hilton design. One of the best things I learned here is that there is so much you can do with color that might not be expected. I always thought that graduating shades of color made the bargello flow, but in this example I didn't have all the shades available in my stash and decided to improvise by choosing colors that worked together and only using maybe 13 thread colors instead of the originally called for 17. I like it, which in the end is all that really counts but realize there's always room for listening to the "opines" of others.

In Jean's booklet she talks about using large areas of unstitched canvas as part of the pattern when "laziness overwhelmed me..." instead of filling in the background.

Now while I loved this concept, I thought my piece might need a little something else in the unstitched areas. Realizing that bargello patterns are already "busy" one should not try to add a lot of distractions that may take away from the overall design. Distractions like beads. I really wanted to put beads on this thing, there are so many options, but when I started hand placing them on the canvas, just to see, there were very few things I could add that turned out to enhance the overall look.

Now I'm not sure if this will be my final choice for embellishment, I am leaning toward using these clear turquoise flower shaped beads, but only where you see them. The colors work, but I'm not accomplishing what I set out to do which was to fill in those unstitched areas. Why bother really? well because it's kinda different....wait, examining the photo I just thought of something more I could do. More later.