Finally September 15 has nearly arrived (at least within 2 hours here in Holland) and we can all start with the Alpine Garden.

First of all, let me introduce myself for those who do not know me. I am Karin Kersten from Holland. I have been cross stitching for a long time, but only for the last couple of years I am stitching charts by US Designers. Before that all I did was stitching charts which were available here in Holland, which means only cross stitch, no specialty stitching, no special threads etc. When I found out that there was more available (through the internet) I got addicted to stitching charts by US designers. And I must say, it has given me a lot of pleasure over the years. Not only the stitching itself, but also the contacts with other people who have the same hobby and I have made a lot of friends through the internet. I am a big fan of Drawn Thread. I love the designs made by Cynthia Zittel and I think (hope) within a couple of weeks I will have all of her current designs (I asked as birthday presents charts by DT).

When I saw the new designs by DT I immediately wanted to stitch them. By now I have finished both the Sunflower Bellpull and the Prairie Garden and now, the Alpine Garden I am going to stitch with you all.

I will post instructions every week, and I would really appreciate it if you could tell me if my instructions are not clear for you. I may use some different words as English is not my mother tongue, so please bear with me on that account.

Now let's get started. I will tell you what I did and how, and I will try to post some scans as well (or put in a link to my photo-album where necessary). I hope you all enjoy this as much as I do.

WHAT WILL BE DONE AND WHEN?
First week: Area 1, and Area 2
Second week: Band a, Area 3, Band 4 and Area 4
Third week: Area 5
Fourth week: Area 6,band c, and part of area 7
Fifth week: Remainder of area 7, Band D, and area 8.

I decided not to do this within 2 weeks, as most of you are also involved in other stitching projects, and I want you all to have fun with this. But at least after 5 weeks it will be finished.

STARTING
Okay, we are getting started. First of all, the main thing you have to do is serge the fabric (either by hand or by machine). Then I made a basting line both horizontal and vertical in the middle . This way it will help me to decide where to start and to check if I am still working on the correct part of the fabric. For fabric I have chosen Smokey Pearl, but I know a lot of you have also chosen different fabrics. I sorted out my threads, and then I had everything ready to go.

From the middle of the fabric (where the horizontal and vertical basting lines cross each other) I counted up 112 stitches (= 224 threads). This is the top of the design. When you look at area 1, I decided to start with the tree in the middle. The top of it is exactly next to the vertical basting line (after 224 threads) and then 1 stitch (= 2 threads) downward. The first tree will be stitched with one thread of Dark Forest in cross stitch.

When that one is done, I did all the mountains (in White) with one thread and already the top part is finished.

After that I went on making the two different trees. First of all, the one on the left. This one is done in Small Ray stitches and for instructions of this stitch, look at the diagram of that. After that, the one on the right is done in Large Ray stitch. Both these trees are done using 1 thread of Dark Forest. But beware, on the tree on the left there are two things I have changed from the chart. First of all, when you look at the right hand side, the 5th row of this tree from above, you will see a symbol on the chart, for a stitch not being seen on the photo on the front of the chart. I did not do this particular stitch. Second: on the 3rd row from the bottom, you will see there is one symbol not on the chart, but it is on the photo. I did this particular stitch. To help you I made a little scan of my adjustments

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After finishing the trees with Dark Forest, I first did make the stitches forming the middle of all the trees in Brown and also the roots of the trees. This helped me in finding the right place to stitch the bottom of this area. After finishing the stitching on the bottom I started to make the flowers. When you make the cross stitches in Dark Forest for the leaves, you can make at the same time the backstitches for the flowers as well. After that the Smyrna cross stitches which are the centers of all the flowers. When that was finished I did the remainder of the flowers with small lazy daisy stitches and normal cross stitches. I will put all the beads in when everything is finished.

After that Area 1 is finished. That was not too bad, was it??

Area 2:
When you look at this area, you first think, where to start?? Well, I started with the flowers on the left, using 1 thread of Light Rose. After finishing the first flower, it was very easy to start stitching the word Valerian using 1 strand of Dark Green. This helps you with the placing of the flowers in the middle and at the right. After the flowers I first did all the cross stitches in Medium Green and then the other cross stitches in Dark Green. When that is finished I did the backstitching of the stems.

When those stems are all finished it is very easy to see the place where you have to do the center of the flowers in French knots in Dark Rose.

Beware of the following: On the chart you will see the symbol T on the left flower, this should be a French knot in Dark Rose when you look at the photo.



Okay, when you have done the French knots, the assignment for this week is finished.

And how does it look like? Do you like it? Was it as difficult as you thought? I enjoyed it and I hope you did as well.

Next week I will be back with more instructions for the next bands. If you have any questions, please ask them!!

I just have one little question for you. I am very curious as to how many people are joining us worldwide with this SAL. I do know some people in Holland, Belgium, Australia, Canada and the US are joining us. So if you could just send a small message to the board, posting your name and country (state), we all know how many of us are doing the same project at the same time.

Write to you again next week
Happy Stitching
Karin L.



Week 2 -- September 22, 2000

Hello everyone,
Before I start with this weeks instructions I first want to thank you all for your lovely comments on my instructions. I am also very surprised (and pleased) to see how many people are joining us with this SAL, and indeed we all come from different places all over the world.

Before getting on with week 2, I wanted to add some hints someone gave me about the first week.

While doing the small and large ray stitches for the left and right tree in area 1, be aware that the stitches on the left side of the trees are done in a reverse stitch then the stitches on the right side of the trees. Also the backstitches for the flowers in area 1 are done in Dark Forest, the same color as the leaves.

I have read some of you have finished the first assignment (even if they did not have much sleep because of doing so), but I hope most of you are ready for this week. I myself think this is an easier week, which could be finished more quickly, but I can be mistaken about that.

BAND A
This week we will start with Band A, which is being done in Horizontal HALF Rhodes with one strand of Pale Green and not in Horizontal Rhodes as mentioned on the chart. This stitch is being made over 4 threads. If you look at the chart you will see that you have to start with your first stitch 8 threads (=4 stitches) under the bottom leaf on the left of Area 2.

Again I made some scans to make it a bit easier.



As you can see I put in some darker lines, where you can check if you are still in line with the stitches above. If you don't do that regularly, you will find that at the end of the band there are still some threads left and then you have to frog to get the right hand side in line with the rest of the project (and frogging is something nobody likes doing.)

Area 3:
In area 3 we are again first starting with the white cross stitches on the first flower on the left. When this first flower is finished, start with backstitching the word Anemone in Dark green. This again will help you to determine the places where the other white flowers should be stitched.

After the white flowers I started with the leaves in Light Olive. Usually when I look at a chart I first determine where to start and what is the most logical way of stitching, using as little thread as possible. Reason for this is that you never know in advance if there are enough threads in your kit, and you don't want to run out of threads before it is finished. Luckily I have found out so far with DT kits, there are always more than enough threads, but there are some designers who don't supply enough. When there are colors missing in your kit you can always contact your LNS or Cynthia from DT.

For this area I started with the leaves on the right hand side of the first flower and worked my way downward, then I went upward doing the stitches on the second flower, again downward on the third flower and up on the fourth and down again on the fifth.

After finishing with this color it is a lot easier to finish of the rest of the leaves with the cross stitches in Dark Olive, and then I did all the backstitches in one strand of Dark Olive.

And then comes the stitch, I still don't like very much myself, which is the French Knot using 1 strand of Dark Yellow in the center of the flowers. If you can't get the French knot looking okay to you, you can also use a colonial knot or a Smyrna cross stitch.

Then backstitch the last word in Dark Green and area 3 is finished.


Band B
This band consists of shell stitches, using 1 strand of Pale Green. While looking at the photo I noticed that you could see little holes at the bottom of each stitch. If you look carefully at the diagram you will see that the Shell Stitch looks very much like the top half of a variation of the Eyelet stitch, so this means, you have to pull the threads very well, to get these little holes.

Again this stitch is made over 4 threads and the starting point is 10 threads (= 5 stitches) below the bottom of the first leaf in Light Olive of area 3.

Be careful, when you move on to the next stitch, that you can't see the thread from the back shining through the hole.


Area 4
This area I started with the words MOUNTAIN Violet in 1 strand Dark Green. It was a bit difficult to decide where and how the start next, but when I looked carefully I decided on starting with the color Dark Green, doing the cross stitches AND the backstitches at the same time. This because at the bottom of each flower there is one isolated cross stitch, then a number of backstitches and then again cross stitches and backstitches.

My first stitch was the cross stitch under the O of the word MOUNTAIN and then I followed again the chart, going down with backstitches and making the leaves. Then the remainder of the leaves were done in cross stitch with Medium green and they are finished.

Then it is time to do the flowers. First I did all the Large Flowers, consisting of 5 lazy daisy stitches, using 1 strand of Medium Violet, and then the small flowers, consisting of 2 lazy daisy stitches, with 1 strand of Pale Violet.

All you have to do then is making Smyrna cross stitches for the center of all the flowers in Light Yellow and backstitch the last word Faith in 1 strand Dark Green and Area 4 is finished!


Now nearly half of the chart is already finished and doesn't it look great!
I hope you all will enjoy doing this part and again, let me know if you have any questions.
Next week we are going to make Area 5, which is real fun to do, once you sorted out where to start and what to watch out for.

Have fun,
Karin



Week 3 -- September 28, 2000
This week we are going to do the area I myself like most. It is area 5, the MOUNTAIN. This is an area you can also use for a single ornament, because on its own it is just as lovely.

While first looking at the area, you might think, where to start and what to do next??? With the help of the photo on the front of the chart I worked out a way I liked most, and which was most helpful to me.

First we start with the outside border of the whole area. This means we will start with all the cross stitches for the outside border, being done in one strand of Pale Green. We start with the first stitch 3 stitches (= 6 threads below the previous area) and on the 3rd stitch horizontal of this row.

We stitch 8 cross stitches, leave 2 stitches open (= 4 threads), 9 cross stitches (again 2 stitches not being done), another 9 cross stitches (2 stitches not being done) and 8 cross stitches. This we do both at the first horizontal row, then vertical on both sides (starting at the first stitch of the row) and then again at horizontal at the bottom side.

Then we fill up the open areas with Eyelet stitches with one strand of White.
Okay, by now we have the outside border, but what to do next. The chart looks complicated, all sorts of stitches, colors etc. But I have found a way which helped me very much.

I looked at the photo and noticed there is a repetitive pattern in the next border of flowers. First we start with all the four corners, being the flowers with the Satin stitches in 2 strands White, and the tendrils backstitched in 1 strand of Dark Blue. We add to that the leaves belonging to these flowers in cross stitches with one strand of Dark Green and this is the result.


Now we have something we can work on, which helps us to define the place where the next stitches are being done.

And yes, I found another repetitive pattern, being the flowers with the Rhodes stitches next to the corners on both sides. These are being done in 1 strand of Light Yellow, the leaves that are connected to them in one strand of Dark Olive and we can also do the cross stitches in Light Olive. After stitching these we have the following:


Once you have this, it is easy to see the place where the last flowers are going to be stitched. We use the Lazy Daisy stitches again with 1 strand of Medium Violet. The centers of these flowers are being done in Smyrna cross stitch using 1 strand of Light Yellow.

When you do the leaves for this flower look carefully. The bottom cross stitch of each flower is being done 3 threads (not 2 stitches) next to the top of the leave beside it!. This stitch is exactly in the middle of the two top stitches of the leaves of the flower.

After having done this, you do the little flowers (consisting of 1 stitch) either in cross stitch with 1 strand of Light Rose or one French knot using 1 strand of Dark Rose depending on the symbol on the chart.

When all these flowers are stitched, we can backstitch all the stems in 1 strand of Dark Green. Having accomplished this, we can do the little inside border with cross stitches in Medium green and then ... yes the most difficult part is finished.

For the inner area we first do all the cross stitches in Pale Green, then the stitches in Light Blue and at last the cross stitches in White.

Watch out when you are doing the cross stitches in Pale green, there are a number of colored stitches in this area,

Here again is the result:


And then, yes it is nearly finished. All other stitching has been done and we now have to add the pine trees. These are being done using 1 strand of Dark Forest. Again I did those working one tree at the time, and I started with the left part of the tree, going upward till the top of the tree, and then downward again to finish the tree (and this going on for the 6 trees).

Except for the charm this area is now completely finished. Charms and beads I usually put on at the end of the project, so I will do it with this one as well.

Next week will again be easier. You will see that the more you have done of this particular chart, the more easily it gets and the more you are going to like it.

Now I have some questions for you:
What area did you like most so far?? What was the most difficult are you have done? If this is your first DT project, would you like to do another one on your own? or would you rather prefer to do another SAL with more explanations of every area and band?

If you have done more of DT charts, would you also like to do another SAL with instructions like these, and if so, do you think it should be done in less weeks or in more weeks?

I am really looking forward to your answers, as I have lots and lots of DT charts I still want to do, and it is really fun doing them together.
What do you think of it??
Looking forward to your reactions.
Happy stitching
Karin


Week 4 - Oct. 5, 2000
How did you all go on with the instructions of week 3? Did you manage to get area 5 stitched? Did you have to frog a lot? I just hope it went all well with all of you. Now just 2 more weeks of instructions to go and then we are FINISHED.

(There will be a lot of finished DT projects to report at the end of October). .
This week we don't have such a large part to do. We will only do area 6, band c and part of area 7.

Area 6 Veronica for Loyalty.
Instead of starting with the flowers I started with the word Veronica. The first stitch (the "V") starts 3 stitches (= 6 threads) under the first stitch after the second eyelet of the area before. This word is being stitched in 1 strand Dark green. When this word is stitched, I started with the cross stitches in Medium Green of the leave left of the "V", doing all the leaves like I described before, ending up with the last leave right of the "A"(with one stitch in between). Check if you end up at the same place, before doing any other stitches, it will save you frogging. After this we do the cross stitches in Dark Green and then the leaves are finished.

I then did the stems, backstitching in Dark Green and then.... French knots. I decided not to do the French knots. As there are so many of them, and mine don't look very nice, I decided to use Smyrna cross stitches.

Who else is going to change the French knots into Smyrna cross stitches?


Band C Leaf Stitch
This stitch is also done in 1 strand Pale Green. Look carefully at the diagram and make your first stitch. This stitch is over 4 threads and all the stitches are done next to each other. So for the second leaf, you bring your needle up at the hole below number 10 of the previous stitch and this will be then number 1 of the new leaf stitch. Therefore the numbers 3, 5 and 7 of the second leaf stitch are in the same hole as number 10, 12 and 14 of the previous stitch. Between area 6 and band C there are 2 stitches left open (= 4 threads).

This is how it looks like when finished:


Area 7
This week we will do only the flowers in light yellow and dark yellow. Next week we will finish this area. I started with the cross stitches of the flower on the left in 1 strand of Light Yellow. I did all the cross stitches of this flower as they are quite close to each other and so could be more easily done.

After the cross stitches, all you have to add are the flower stamens which are being done in long stitch using 1 strand of Dark yellow and this is the result:


We are now finished with this week instructions. As you can see it is a lot less work than the previous weeks, so perhaps those of you, who have not been able to keep up with us, are able to get back on schedule again.

Now my question for this week:
How are you going to finish it: Bellpull or framed, if so, what frame, any mats?? And I am very curious to the following. I know people from all over the world are stitching along with us, so my question is: How much do YOU pay for framing locally? Have you ever tried framing yours? What tips and hints can you give us?

In Holland I have to pay about $50.00 with a very ordinary mat, no fancy things on the mat or something like that.

Looking forward to hear from you again.
Happy stitching
Karin



Week# 5 - October 12, 2000
This will be the final instructions for the Alpine Garden and then we will have it finished within 5 weeks! Are you not proud of yourself that you have finished something so nice in such a quick time?

I better get started quickly today and go on where we left last week at Area 7.

Area 7
We did the flowers for the Snow Lily last week and now all we have to do are the cross stitches in Light Olive, doing leave by leave, and then you will see that most of the stitching on this area is already done. We only have to do the cross stitches in Dark Olive and the backstitching of the stems in the same color. I did those two at the same time, so first a bit of backstitching (at the flower at the left) then the cross stitches, then again the backstitches and so on. Usually on other charts you can not do this, as backstitches are done with one strand of a particular color and cross stitches usually are done with 2 strands. But on this chart we do both stitches with one strand, so we can combine doing these. (And also because there are very few backstitches to be done).

After that only the backstitching of the words in Dark Green and Area 7 is finished.

Band D Butterfly Stitch
The Butterfly stitch is done over 4 threads in 1 strand of Pale Green. Look carefully at the stitch diagram and follow the instructions. Like Band C all the stitches are next to each other, without any threads left over in between. The first satin stitch is the top one and you move from left to right, so the first stitch is done 2 stitches (= 4 threads) below and one stitch (=2 threads) left to the bottom cross stitch of the previous area. I liked this stitch very much, it is quickly done, and you can also use this stitch on different projects. (Don't forget regularly to check if you are still in line with the stitches above).

Area 8
This area I started (again) with the cross stitches on the left flower in one strand of Dark Blue. After finishing the first flower I again first backstitched the word "Columbine" in one strand Dark Green. By then we have a guideline where to put in the other cross stitches of the flowers. After the cross stitches I made the backstitches of the Tendrils in 2 strands of Dark Blue. (You can't do them at the same time as the cross stitches because you use 2 strands instead of 1 strand for the cross stitches). After that I made the flower centers using 1 strand of White. First do the horizontal and the vertical Lazy Daisy stitch, before you do the lazy daisy stitch which runs diagonal from left to right (or right to left).

Then it is back again to the leaves, first all the leaves in Dark Green and then the leaves in Medium Green. There are a lot of stems to be backstitched, so we do this at the end in Dark Green, at the same time doing the last word "Courage".

Beads and charm
This is really the last part we have to do, the beads and the charm. The beads have to be done in area 1. Usually I sew on beads with a cross stitch, which makes them more secure on the fabric. The beads are being sewn on with one strand of Brown. Then on Area 5 we sew on the bird charm using 1 strand of Light Blue. Look carefully at the place where you have to sew it on.

FINISHED We now have this garden finished. If this was your first DT, I hope you enjoyed this chart as much as a lot of us and that you are going to do more DT designs (And I do hope it was not too difficult for you). If this was not your first DT, please tell us about the other ones you have done before, share photo's of your work, so we can all enjoy them and get good ideas about what to do next.

At the end of this SAL I want to thank Karen for her printable instructions, which were very helpful for a lot of us, Marj for being the moderator of this board, who will arrange with Judy to get the instructions on the project page, everyone for their comments, compliments etc. and last but not least Cynthia from The Drawn Thread for making such a lovely design which has given us all a lot of fun!! THANK YOU ALL and perhaps till next time, when we might do another SAL. (Perhaps next year with a new design??)

Karin