More Stitching....

 

Great Progress...!

It was Dreadfully Hot all last week, Dear Readers, making it impossible to even Think about working on anything at all, no matter how little! The temperature was in the nineties farenheit nearly every day. A few thundershowers passed by every other day, but most of them missed us and we remain much too dry in this part of the Valley. Where I work, only 35 miles to the North of here, they have had twice as much rain as we have had all month! It cooled off on Monday night and has been quite comfortable, even chilly in the 50's in the morning! Needless to say, I got very little done last week. But I actually surprised myself by finishing the stitching on the brocade gown.... just a few stitches at a time! In the above picture you can see where I had gotten by Saturday morning. My chief problem at this point was figuring out the folds for the cloth as it "pools" on the ground. My first sketch was very inadequate!

Here you can see the chart before I had

 refined any of the details at the bottom.

And while I didn't get the design all figured out before stitching more... 

This picture shows the final chart. 

I had to really try to see where the folds would fall

 and where the highlights would be the most pale

 and where they would fall in the Lady's own shadow.

I started by completing the highlighted side of the gown

 because the folds there were the simplest.

I worked the blue trim at the hem first,

 and then brought the folds down to meet the hem.

It stayed pretty much the same as the original chart.

The tricky part was the front center folds...

 the cloth needed to angle differently than the tapestry Lady's gown,

 so I needed to really think about placement of the folds.

And as always, at a certain point,

 I needed to just start stitching to see if it would look okay...

 and after a while it is too late to make changes!

And it was so hot... I was taking a lot of breaks

 and forgetting to take any pictures!

So here the front fold is completed.

And I think it works pretty well!

This cloth has to feel heavy... not light and flighty!

And then starting to work the "shadowed" side of the gown.

Notice I stuck one of the spring meadow blossoms in

 to overlap the hem a little bit...

(it is hard to spot!)

And then I needed to make the hindmost folds

 look natural and fit in the space...

The Lady in Waiting is Not treading on her Mistress's Gown!

And I did the last shadowed fold after I had done the farthest back one,

 the better to judge how they related to each other.

It needed to be shadowed, but highlighted enough to look like a fold.....

Yes, I was overthinking all these parts!

And now the gowns are finished!

But the "Tapestry" is far from done, Dear Readers!

I have plans for the remaining space...

 as well as all the lovely "meadow flowers" to add.

But here you can see the "tapestry" sections together....

And I am aware that there is all sorts of extra canvas above the Ladies....

The only limitation is the space it needs to hang in!

So all in all, Dear Readers,

 while it seemed like only a little more stitching...

 I actually made Great Progress!