Week 4 Hello everyone,
First of all I will give you an outline what we are going to do the next couple of weeks.

Week 4: Remaining flowers and motifs inside top left garden, trees on the left side of this garden.
Week 5: Corner tree, trees above top left garden, words around this garden, 4 sided border for top right garden.
Week 6: Flower border in top right garden, some motifs in this garden, the trees to the right of it and the corner tree.
Week 7: Remaining motifs in this garden, trees above it and words around top right garden, rapid stitch top half of this project.
By then we will half of Sanctuary finished!

Now, let's go back to the instructions for week 4.
First start with the white flowers. They are situated one stitch (= 2 threads) above the bottom flower. The flowers are done with a smyrna cross stitch in white, with the heart also done as a smyrna cross stitch, but then in Gold Light.

After that you see what the place is where to stitch the little bee. The bee is done over one, and for this you have to use the diagram on the chart. The best place to start with is the top left wing of the bee with 2 (!) strands of white, using a satin stitch. Start at the bottom stitch of this particular top left wing (4 threads next to the backstitch of the previous flower). After that the bottom wing (also satin stitch) then the body of the bee, with one strand of the colours mentioned. While making the cross stitches in steel gray (colour 998 ) you can also do the backstitches at the same time with the same colour. Look carefully, the angle of the bee consists of 2 backstitches (in total over 2 threads) and not over 3 threads as shown on the main chart.

After finishing the cross stitches and backstitches go on with the top right wings. Again these are being done with a satin stitch in white, using 2 strands. I have made a scan of the order in which I made the remaining motifs. Here it is:

Flower number 3 has a special stitch, the daisy lazy, of which is a clear diagram on the chart. Flower 6 is done with 1 strand of colour 781, bright wisteria, by making a large eyelet. (pull the thread very tightly). Flower 7 is again a smyrna cross stitch and the flowers on number 8 are small and large ray stitches in the colour bright rose.

Now we have finished the inside of our first garden. Doesn't it look lovely??

We finish this week with the 5 trees on the left side of this garden. First start with the bottom of these trees and the position where to start is very easy to detect. This is next to the left of your basting line (which by now you can remove for this part of the garden). Then you can go on with the green parts of these trees.

Perhaps you might have the feeling that you want to turn your fabric, so you can stitch the trees upright in front of you. Don't do this. If you do that, your cross stitches will face another way than the other cross stitches of this project and that doesn't look very nice. This is something that we will do for the complete project. Cross stitches should always face the same way, by which I mean, start at the bottom left, go to the top right, come up again at the bottom right and go down again at the top left.

Okay, that's all for this week. I hope you are all still enjoying the project and have fun.

I was wondering about one thing, something that happened on other SAL's a couple of times. Did anyone already had to do a lot of frogging?? And if so, where did you go wrong? This might be helpful for others to know what to watch for especially!!

Week 5

Hello everyone,
It's Saturday again, time for the next week of our SAL. This week will be an easier week. We only do the trees on top of the left top garden, the words around this garden, the porch on top of the middle path and the 4-sided border for the top right garden.

First make the bottom part of the corner tree. Then go on with the corner tree itself, making the leaves with a rice stitch in gray green dark. Start with the bottom leaf, which is positioned 6 threads to the left of the outside of the bottom of this tree. Then work your way upwards, first one side of the tree, and when you are at the top of the tree, work your way to the right and then go downwards.

After that, first make the bottom of the 3 top trees, including the stems and branches of the trees, before adding the leaves. This bottom is again on top of the basting line, which by now you can remove. After finishing the leaves, you add the berry red stitches. If you look at your chart you will see at the top of the first tree another strange symbol, don't worry, just ignore this, as there should not be a stitch here.

The next thing we will do is the porch. You will notice that the sides of the porch are exactly above the paths below. This porch is going to be the same as the bottom one. First start with the cross stitches in Taupe Medium, then add the cross stitches and backstitches in blue dark green, which you can do at the same time. After that add the bright rose French knots (or other stitches you like to prefer instead of a French knot).

Next thing you are going to do the words around this garden. We start with the letter O, as this one is easy to place. It is being done 4 threads to the left from the bottom tree.

Work your way upward to the corner and to the left until you are on top of the porch. Then add the little flowers between the words.

When this is done, you start with the 4-sided border around the top right garden. As you have already done this same border for the top left garden, I don't think you will need another explanation on how to do this. The same things applies here, do it as a pulled 4-sided stitch or a normal 4 sided stitch and remember about the distances to the paths and the basting lines (4 threads next or above the paths and two threads under and next to the basting lines).

For those of you who want to go on with the flower border of this garden, be aware there are some mistakes on the chart, I will write more about next week.

As you will have seen, this was an easy week. I am wondering how far everyone is. Have you been able to keep up after 4 weeks, or have you already done a lot more, or are you still waiting for your fabric?? Perhaps someone wants to share her finished week 5, so we will all see how it looks like after this week??

Looking forward to reading your reactions again.
Happy stitching and have a nice weekend (a long one in Holland as we have Monday off as we celebrate our Queen's birthday!)

Week 6

Hello everyone,
This week we will do part of the right top garden, trees on the right hand side of the garden and the corner tree.

First we start with the flower border. Like all the other flower borders we use blue green dark for the leaves and the stems, and Cherry Waterlillies for the flowers. We start with the leaves and the stems. Watch out, there are some leaves on the photo, which are not mentioned on the chart. I think it is easier to show you where they are instead of describing them in words. There are all on the left-hand side of the border.

All the flowers are stitched in Half Rhodes. Look very carefully at the way these stitches are done on the chart. On the horizontal lines, there are stitched as shown on the diagram of the half Rhodes, so made from bottom to top. On the vertical lines they are stitched from left to right.

Then we add the bird in the bottom of this garden. Both the beak and the legs are stitched in mouse dark grey, the same colour you use for the left and bottom part of this bird. Before adding the red top of this bird, first start with the flower next to it. When you have done the leaves for this flower, you can use the same strand of red for both the bird and the flowers.

Next thing you will do is the butterfly. Again this is done over one thread of the fabric. I started with the wing closes to the flower and followed the diagram. Remember the diagram shows the actual threads of the fabric.

After that we will do both the flowers above this bottom part with bright rose eyelets. The final motif for this week, will be the flower on the top right hand side of this garden.

First start with the stems and leaves in Blue dark green. Watch out for the way the leaves are positioned. There is a small difference between the chart and the photo. There are 2 stitches in Berry red not shown on the chart, (or actually one stitch is shown, but not in berry red).

Final items for this week is the trees on the right hand side of the garden and the corner tree. Again first start with the bottom and the stems of all the trees. After that do the leaves. The leaves of the corner tree, are stitched with 2 (!) strands of gray green med. Also this corner tree I started at the bottom on the right hand side, working my way upward till the top. Then I worked my way from right to left for the remaining part of this tree.

This is all for this week. As mentioned before there won't be any instructions next week. This will give all of you who need it a change to catch up. For those who want to do a bit more next week as well, I can advise you to start on either the words around the top garden and/or the 4-sided borders for the bottom gardens. This will save you a lot of time the next couple of weeks.

And for those present at the Drawn Thread weekend at Elegant stitch, I am sure you will all have a great time and this extra week will also give you time to do some stitching on the lovely class project you are going to make.

I myself will leave this Tuesday for my holiday to the US, so I won't be able to reply to any emails you might send me. If you have any questions, you can always send them to the board, as I will try to read the board everyday.

WEEK 7

Hello everyone,
After the break we had for one week, I hope everyone had time to catch up with the SAL again. So tell us, who is still working on it?, how far did you get? Are you still behind? Or have you done more than week 6 already?

As you can see, a lot of questions and I am sure everyone will be very interested to hear the answers. So tell us!!

This week we will finish the top half of Sanctuary.

We start with the sunflower in the garden. First do the stem in gray green medium with 1 strand. Then do the leaves in the satin stitch with 2 (!) strands. The flower is done with the lazy daisy stitch in gold light. After that, do the heart of the flower with mouse gray dark.

Next do the flower in the middle. Again stem and leaves first, followed by the flowers. First we do the 3/4 cushion stitch in glacier blue. Look at the diagram how to do this stitch. Wait with adding the gold light hearts until you have done the next flower, which is the one above this. This is an easy flower. Everything is done in cross stitch except for the hearts of the flowers, which are done in gold light with a smyrna cross stitch, the same stitch and colour we have to use for the hearts of the previous flower. You can do them both at the same time.

Now the final flower in the top left corner has to be added. The flower is a double cross eyelet in white. As this is a pulled stitch, don't forget to pull the threads very hard. This is how the top right garden looks like.

Next thing we will do are the 3 trees at the top of this garden. Again, start with the bottom of these trees on the basting line, and then add the leaves in blue green medium. At the end make the gold light smyrna cross stitches in the trees.

We will then add the little porch on the right hand side. You will notice that this one is different from the one at the top, as it is smaller, (only 2 stitches between the sides instead of 4 stitches). As you can see the top part is now nearly finished, except for the rapid stitch. This stitch is done in Antique Brass.

Follow the diagram how to do this stitch, and you will see how lovely it looks with the overdyed silk. This is all for this week, the top half is finished.

Please let us all know how far you got. If possible make a scan, and put it in your photo-album together with the date. It is always nice to see afterwards how much you have done in just 8 weeks.

Happy stitching
Karin Kersten

WEEK 8

Hello everyone,
It was good to hear a number of you are still on schedule, or even ahead. For those behind, don't worry, you will catch up again or will finish it, even if it is after the SAL is finished.

I read somewhere a hint how to have a good rotation of your WIP, especially if these are all big projects. Work on something for 10 hours in total (no more), then move on to another WIP (also 10 hours) and then the next one (10 hours) and so on. Of course you can change this into 5 hours. If you are able to make scans of what you have done in those 10 hours you will be amazed, and it is fun afterwards to see how your progress was.

Today we are going to start working on the left bottom garden.
You will notice that the next couple of weeks the SAL will have less instructions, mainly because a lot of things have already been covered for the first two gardens. This is what we will do this week: the 4-sided border, the flower border, 3 flowers and the deer and the bird.

The 4-sided border should be easy by now, just remember the distance to the basting lines and you will have no problem at all.

The flower border consists of a lot of backstitching and some small cross stitched leaves (like the top right garden) and the half diagonal eyelet for the flowers. There is a diagram of this particular stitch, and remember, that this eyelet is a pulled stitch. Watch carefully to the way the eyelet is positioned (there are 4 different ways).

When the flower border is finished we will start first with the deer. Don't start with the hoofs, but start with the leg on the right. Work your way to the top of this leg, then go down again for the few stitches of the next leg. Go upwards again and do the bottom row of the body. At the end go down and stitch the two front legs. When you have finished the complete body, add the hoofs, the horns and the nose with mouse gray dark, as well as the legs and beak of the bird sitting on top of the deer.

As you have already done its beak and legs, finish the rest of the bird with smyrna cross stitches in white. Next thing we will do is the flower on the left. Start with the flower most to the left and first do all the backstitches to the top then on going down again do the cross stitches for the leaves. Then go on with the same colour for the flower next to it and finally the little flower between the legs of the deer. Finish with the flowers done in smyrna cross stitches in Bright Wisteria.

Next we are doing the flower to the left of the horns. Watch very carefully, the leaves are done in a different colour then the stem. The flower is done with a satin stitch with 2 (!) strands of purple.

The final flower for this week is the one above the deer. The leaves of this particular flower are all done with a lazy daisy stitch. As this stitch is done only over 2 threads of the fabric, they look quite compact. The flowers are done in Gold light with a French knot. I changed this stitch into a smyrna cross stitch, because (as usual) my French knots did not look very nice.

That's all for this week. Have fun this week and until next week.
Karin Kersten

WEEK 9

Hey everyone,
It's weekend again. Last weekend we had lovely weather here in Holland, so I was really looking forward to this weekend, with 3 days off from work (Whit Sunday and Monday). But.. it's cold again, lots of rain, so there is little change of doing something about the garden, or even to sit relaxed in the sun. On days like this I just wished I lived in a more sunny country, although I am sure that's also not always that much fun. So instead of doing something in the garden, I just have to stitch this weekend

Back to the instructions.
This week we will do the remaining motifs in the bottom left garden, the porch and the trees on the left-hand side.

We first start with both the flowers, before finishing this garden with the over one stitched butterfly and bird.

The first flower is the Iris, which has two colors for the leaves, gray green dark and gray greed med. The backstitch for the stems of this flower is done in gray green dark.

First start with the lighter color green, then do the darker color, so you can do the backstitches at the same time. For the flowers you use a satin stitch in White. As with all other satin stitches, you have to use 2 strands.

After the Iris, you stitch the flower above it. This time we use the Cherry Waterlillies for the eyelets. Now that all flowers are finished, all we have to do now are the butterfly and the bird. I started with the bird, cross stitched over one in Waterlillies Steel. Then I added the backstitches for the bird in mouse gray dark. You need this color again for the butterfly with the line in the middle, so this is what we do first. Then add the wings in antique brass and your 3rd garden is finished.

Next thing we do is the porch. As mentioned before there is a mistake on the chart. This porch should look exactly like the porch on the right hand side. On the outside of the porch there should only be 6 stitches (at the curved top of the porch) and the ones, shown on the chart at the bottom of the porch, should not be done.

Then we go one with the trees on the left-hand side. Watch out carefully. On the chart the stems of these trees are shown in the color Taupe Medium and the stem of the corner tree in Bunny Brown. But if you look carefully at the photo you will notice that these colors should just be the other way around. So the bottoms of the trees on the left are done in Bunny Brown, the bottom of the corner tree in Taupe Medium.

Again, this is all for this week. I hope you are all still enjoying it. Just a few more weeks and it will be finished !!!!

Happy stitching and have a great weekend
Karin Kersten

WEEK 10

Hello everyone,
Again as you will all see, an easy week, as most of what we are going to do this week, is something we have done before. And it will be a boring week as well for the instructions, as I just could not think of something special to point out to you by using small photos. So no photos this week

We are going to do the corner tree at the left bottom, the 3 trees at the bottom, the porch, the words around this garden and the 4-sided border for the last garden.

First of all we start with the stem of the corner tree. As mentioned last week this should be stitched in taupe medium and not in Bunny Brown.

For the leaves I first started with the left side of the tree. The stitch we use is a short satin stitch in the color Blue Green Bright. Although it is a satin stitch for which we normally use 2 strands, for this tree we only use 1 strand.

When you look at the photo you think there are 2 different colors used for this tree, but once finished, you will notice that it just looks like that, although you have only used one color.

Now the corner tree is finished, we go on with the stems of the 3 bottom trees in mouse gray dark. Then we add the leaves of the trees. First you do all the green stitches, then you add the light gold smyrna cross stitches. After that first do the bottom porch, again the same as the one at the top of the design, and then add the words. And remember, for the words, don't turn the fabric, as you want all stitches to look the same.

By now the 3rd garden is finished. All we have to do this week is the 4-sided border for the final garden. I won't tell you again how to do this and what to watch out for, because by then you will get real bored by me.

Just 2 more weeks and the last garden and words will be finished. Then we go on with the hemstitching and the flower border around all the gardens.

Have you already decided what you are going to do?? Finish it the way Cynthia described to us, or are you going to frame it and use perhaps a 4-sided stitch or something else??

For those who have not finished it yet, now is the time to start thinking about it, and for those who have finished Sanctuary, tell us what you did and why. This can be very helpful for those who have not decided yet on what to do. And perhaps show us results???

Looking forward to hear from all of you, Happy stitching
Karin Kersten

Week 11

This will be a fun week again, with lots of little motifs, colors etc. We will do the following: the flower border inside the garden, the squirrel, tree with acorns, the year and 3 different flowers inside the garden, and the 3 bottom trees as well as the corner tree. It sounds like a lot, but as you will all know by now, the little motifs really stitch up very quickly and are fun.

First we start with the floral border by stitching all the leaves in blue green dark. I started at the left hand side, that way you don't need to count too many threads. And then I worked my way upwards and around the whole garden.

Next we will do the flowers with full Rhodes with 1 strand of Cherry. For these flowers I did not turn the fabric, while working on either the sides or the top or bottom, so they all look the same.

Then we are going to add the little motifs in the garden. First of all start with the squirrel, which is done with a cross stitch in bunny brown. Next thing is the year. On the chart the year is shown stitched in blue green med., but when I looked at the photo I decided that this should be a different color, comparing the year to the leaves from flowers above it. Therefore I used blue green light, number 643 for the year. Next item to stitch is the tree, first starting with the stem and then the leaves. The final thing to be added are the acorns, stitch with 2 strands in a satin stitch.

Now the bottom of this garden is finished, I decided to add just a few more flowers, so we are going to do the little blue flowers on the left, the red flower above that and the main yellow flowers next to both these flowers. For the little blue flowers you have to use 1 (!) strand of bright blue and make a very small satin stitch. Wait with adding the Smyrna cross stitches in the hearts until you have finished the other flowers for this week. (you need the same color for the last flower).

Then we add the flower above it, which is a very easy one.
Finally we do the flowers in the middle. First start with all the stems of these flowers with 1 (!) strand of Olive Dark. When you have done that, add the leaves, which are done with 2 (!) strands of this color, making little satin stitch leaves. Then we start using the light gold color, first add the hearts in the blue flowers with a Smyrna cross stitch and then add the final flowers. The last ones are done as an elongated horizontal Smyrna. You will see that is a Smyrna cross stitch, 4 threads wide and 2 threads high. Look carefully at the diagram as you stitch this Smyrna in a different order then the usual Smyrna.

Now part of the garden is finished, we go on with the bottom trees. First of course we do the stems, then the leaves and finally the red apples. Then we add the corner tree. For the leaves of this tree I decided to stitch them in the same order as we have done all the other trees. So first finish the left-hand side of this tree, going from top to bottom and then do the right hand side of the tree.

By now you will all be able to see what we are going to do next week, being the remainder of the inner border and the last week we will do the outer border and the hemstitching. Then Sanctuary is finished.

Have you already thought about what design you are going to do next?? I have not yet made up my mind about it, as I first want to finish the bellpull for the DT exchange, enjoy the summer holiday, and by then there will be new designs, which will again make our choice very difficult.

WEEK 12

This week we are going to finish the complete inner border of Sanctuary. There are not that many different things left to be done. And as we have done much of it already before, there is not much I can tell you this week.

At first we start with the remaining motifs in the fourth garden. Start with the flowers on the right hand side. The flowers are done in white with the arrow stitch and half arrow stitch. Again there is a very clear diagram on how to do this particular stitch. Look carefully where you start with the stitch. This is one thread below the end of the backstitched stem.

After that we are going on with the bright rose flowers above it. First of all start with all the leaves and the backstitch stems. Then we add the lovely Jessica stitch. For those of you who have never done this stitch before, it's not that difficult at all, if you follow the diagram and I am sure you will also love the final result.

Now we have done the flowers the only thing we have to add is the little ladybug over one. I started with the Berry Red and then added the very dark steel gray, doing both the cross stitches and the back stitches at the same time.

As our gardens are now finished, we can add the trees on the right hand side. As usual we start with the stems and then we add the leaves of the trees.

We are going on with adding the words around this garden (don't forget that you DO NOT turn your fabric for this).

Last but not least is the rapid stitch around the complete bottom half of Sanctuary. For this we DO turn the fabric when we turn around a corner.

And that's it for this week, as mentioned before, not a lot of different things. Now we have only one more week to go, an important week with the finishing instructions.

Have a nice weekend and happy stitching

WEEK 13-Finishing

For most of you this will be an important week as we are going to finish Sanctuary. I know some of you will make a 4 sided stitch around the garden instead of the hemstitching, but I decided to follow the chart and make it exactly as on the photo.

We start this week with the cutting and removing of the threads.
First we count 6 threads from the center top of the rapid stitch border and we cut the 7th thread in the middle. We remove the 7th thread completely to the edges of your fabric. Do this on all 4 sides of the fabric. Then we cut the 8th thread, also at the same point as the 7th thread and we remove this thread to the point where the 7th thread of the other side is removed. From that point we re-weave the 8th thread in the fabric to the edge on the place where you removed the 7th thread. You will notice that by then you again have all threads available for stitching the borders. Watch out when you reweave, that your thread will go up and under the threads opposite from the thread above and under it.

Now this is finished, we can go on with stitching the outer border. We first start with the vines at the top and work our way around the gardens. Check regularly that there are always 6 threads between the bottom stitch of this border and the removed threads. When the vines are finished, we add the flowers with the Cherry Waterlillies.

Now we come to the final point where we are going to fold the hems and mitering the corners. What I did was the following. I counted the threads and put in pins after the 26ht thread, the 52nd thread and the 68th thread.

Then we have to remove all the fabric next to the 68th thread. What I usually do is remove is the 69th thread completely, and then cut the remaining fabric, as you will see a nicer line where you have to cut. At the same time your 3rd pin (counted from the removed threads) is also removed. Next thing we do is make a fold at the place where your 2nd pin is (16 threads from the edge) to the back of the fabric. Press this gently and repeat it on all 4 sides. Then we fold again to the back at the place where the 1st pin is, also press this gently. You will notice that the bottom edge of this fold lines up with the area where you removed the threads. As we have pressed these folds very gently, we can now open up all of them. At the corners we make another fold to the back of the fabric, this time diagonal. You make this fold in such a way that you can still see the open corner where the threads were removed. About 16 threads from this fold line you cut the fabric (also diagonal). Next thing we will do is to fold back all the top and side folds (without unfolding the corner) so both the first and second fold you have made. What you will see now are the 4 mitered corners. Secure the hems and the corners with pins or basting stitches.

Next thing we will do is the hemstitching. First of all, use either a good sewing thread that matches the color of your linen or use 1 thread of the fabric (something I have done). Start at the corner at the FRONT of your project and work your way from left to right. For those who have never done this before I have made 4 little scans showing you how to do the hemstitches.

You will see that actually it wasn't that difficult to make these hemstitches. And by now you can use this stitch on a lot of other projects. If you have any questions or if something is not clear to you, please send me an email and I will try to help you with this.

Finally use the sewing thread to whip stitch the corners together and Sanctuary is FINISHED!!

I have really enjoyed these past 13 weeks and I do hope you have all enjoyed it as well. Thank you all for your comments, the additional hints etc.

You will find my next SAL on the Charity SAL's forum, where we will start with From the Heart Sewing Pocket and after that a SAL with DT Winter Whitework. I hope to see you all there again as well.

Again, thanks very much everyone. I had FUN and I hope you had too.
Have a great summer
Karin Kersten

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