Tuesday, May 16, 2006
The Road To Paris: Prologue and First Stages
(Poster's note: This post is crammed full of informative links...)
Hello again! As promised, I am making a post about my Current Project! So without further delays... here goes...First off, I am sure you have all followed the link in my last post about what I am going to stitch. No? Well, here is another pic of it so you can be up to speed:
(Sorry about the resolution. I am still trying to get the hang of picture taking and posting...)Anyway... This is part of the inspiration. My original idea was to make this once. And then I had the idea to do a "multiples in one project" kind of thing. But then... I looked at the wall in our (okay, my) bike room and saw this:
This is a plaque that Kim got for me a while back. As some of you may know, I got her hooked on watching the Tour de France on the TV. The 'Arc ' mentioned on the plaque is the final landmark that the riders see when they make the final ride into Paris. I have this hanging on my wall over the autographed poster of Lance Armstrong after his 1999 Tour win. (I had forgotten that he managed to win by almost 8 minutes!)
Needless to say, this moment of insight pretty much crystalized my idea for this project! It seeemed only fitting to do a project to honor Lance's 7 Tour victories. At first, I was going to do a group of about 7 of these Cedrics and mimic -although probably not very well- Lance and his Discovery Team. Well... that soon changed when I was able to find a frame that was almost identical to the 'Arc' one. That frame found, I redecided to do only 4 of them. (The frame is 20 inches wide. The Cedrics are 4 inches wide each. You can do the math...) I would keep 1 of them as Lance, do one as a characature of Bob Roll (former mountain bike racer and current Tour commentator), one as myself (more or less), and one of the original Cedric. To that end, I copied the pattern 4 times, taped it together, and then decided on the individual colors for each 'Cedric' character. Below is a pic of the entire set of patterns:
(clicking on the above pic will show a better one. But you get the idea...)
That decided, I sat to the task of preparing the project for stitching. First off, I had to decide on what kind of fabric to stitch it on first. That wasn't overly hard, once I went through every piece of fabric that Kim had dyed. No takers. BUT when I went to our local stitching shop, I found The Perfect Fabric for this project. It is almost the same color as the 'Arc' plaque, and therefore it will be a good match once completed. Then, I pulled out all of the flosses that I had decided (with a little help from Kim) to use. Kim has taught me a new phrase: 'floss toss'. The following pic will show the floss toss for 'The Road To Paris':
As you can see, these colors should look very good on this fabric. Once it is all done, that is. (FYI: the fabric is 14ct and called 'Relic'. It is an orange/brown/red overdyed piece. Very nice...)
Okay... Pattern? Check. Colors? Check. Fabric? Check. Now, on to the stitching...
I started working on 'The Road To Paris' last friday at work. I want to go on record as saying that I have all kinds and colors of respect for those talented folks who can stitch in hand, without a hoop. Do to a technical error that was all the cat's fault...
It was NOT my fault! -jessie
This is a plaque that Kim got for me a while back. As some of you may know, I got her hooked on watching the Tour de France on the TV. The 'Arc ' mentioned on the plaque is the final landmark that the riders see when they make the final ride into Paris. I have this hanging on my wall over the autographed poster of Lance Armstrong after his 1999 Tour win. (I had forgotten that he managed to win by almost 8 minutes!)Needless to say, this moment of insight pretty much crystalized my idea for this project! It seeemed only fitting to do a project to honor Lance's 7 Tour victories. At first, I was going to do a group of about 7 of these Cedrics and mimic -although probably not very well- Lance and his Discovery Team. Well... that soon changed when I was able to find a frame that was almost identical to the 'Arc' one. That frame found, I redecided to do only 4 of them. (The frame is 20 inches wide. The Cedrics are 4 inches wide each. You can do the math...) I would keep 1 of them as Lance, do one as a characature of Bob Roll (former mountain bike racer and current Tour commentator), one as myself (more or less), and one of the original Cedric. To that end, I copied the pattern 4 times, taped it together, and then decided on the individual colors for each 'Cedric' character. Below is a pic of the entire set of patterns:
(clicking on the above pic will show a better one. But you get the idea...)
As you can see, these colors should look very good on this fabric. Once it is all done, that is. (FYI: the fabric is 14ct and called 'Relic'. It is an orange/brown/red overdyed piece. Very nice...)
Okay... Pattern? Check. Colors? Check. Fabric? Check. Now, on to the stitching...
I started working on 'The Road To Paris' last friday at work. I want to go on record as saying that I have all kinds and colors of respect for those talented folks who can stitch in hand, without a hoop. Do to a technical error that was all the cat's fault...
It was NOT my fault! -jessie...I had managed to forget my hoop at home. :-O Uh oh! Let me say that a small photo frame and a couple of rubber bands make a pretty good make-do sittching hoop... ;-) Below are the results of part of what I got done on Friday:
Anyway... I started working on this last Friday at work. Saturday and Sunday -as I mentioned in my last post- Kim and I went down to her mum's and spent the weekend. I had quite a lot of time to stitch. Things are going fairly quickly and I have been able to get the following 2 Cedrics finished by the end of Sunday night:
As I mentioned earlier, these 2 are (from right to left) 'Lance' and 'Bob'. (Aren't they cute?!?) 'Lance' will end up having a 'golden' helmet, a 'yellow' jersey (shirt), and blue shorts; akin to his Discovery Team colors on Race Day. 'Bob', however, will have a slightly more colorful outfit: 'Hot rod' (red/orange/yellow) by Weeks Dye Works helmet, a 'Confetti' by Weeks Dye Works jersey (yellow/blue/green/red), and -believe it or not- plain blue shorts. (DMC #995, FYI). 'Cedric' and 'I ' will stay fairly tame. My helmet will be tones of grey (like my actual helmet) and my shorts will be subdued tones of blue. Cedric will remain the same as the original pattern colors. A bit of an homage to the original design, sotospeak... All and all, this project should look pretty darn cute when it is all done. I figure that I should be done -stitching, mounting, framing, and all- way before the end of the month. Maybe sooner, the way things are going! Stay tuned and see how things go...
(Can you tell that it is getting late and I am running out of things to say?)
As a point of Updatedness: I can say that I have almost completed the outline of 'my' Cedric. (Like I have been saying, this thing is going fast...) I am hoping to have 'Cedric' himself outlined by thrusday at the latest, and then I will show another update pic. I am soooo wanting to type in the phrase "Say hello to my little friend(s)!" for the title of that post! If you have seen -or at least, seen something relating to- the movie "Scar Face" with Al Pacino, you will recognize the quote... ;-) lol
Okay... What else? Well, first let me answer Lili's comment question from my last post: Yes. Very much so when you compare old pictures of the two of them, or when you get a pic of them in almost the same pose together. Almost freaky to me, sometimes... ;-)
Other than that... Not much to say. The weather here has been playing havoc with Kim's sinuses as welll as mine. Also, for some reason the 'excema' that I got just before our wedding is making a return engagement lately. Don't know the reason for that for sure, but I am sure that Mother Nature has something to do with that too. Oh, and the cat is still a pukey butt.
---hack, hack, hack---
Well, maybe just a little bit...
-jessie
Anyway... I started working on this last Friday at work. Saturday and Sunday -as I mentioned in my last post- Kim and I went down to her mum's and spent the weekend. I had quite a lot of time to stitch. Things are going fairly quickly and I have been able to get the following 2 Cedrics finished by the end of Sunday night:
As I mentioned earlier, these 2 are (from right to left) 'Lance' and 'Bob'. (Aren't they cute?!?) 'Lance' will end up having a 'golden' helmet, a 'yellow' jersey (shirt), and blue shorts; akin to his Discovery Team colors on Race Day. 'Bob', however, will have a slightly more colorful outfit: 'Hot rod' (red/orange/yellow) by Weeks Dye Works helmet, a 'Confetti' by Weeks Dye Works jersey (yellow/blue/green/red), and -believe it or not- plain blue shorts. (DMC #995, FYI). 'Cedric' and 'I ' will stay fairly tame. My helmet will be tones of grey (like my actual helmet) and my shorts will be subdued tones of blue. Cedric will remain the same as the original pattern colors. A bit of an homage to the original design, sotospeak... All and all, this project should look pretty darn cute when it is all done. I figure that I should be done -stitching, mounting, framing, and all- way before the end of the month. Maybe sooner, the way things are going! Stay tuned and see how things go...
(Can you tell that it is getting late and I am running out of things to say?)
As a point of Updatedness: I can say that I have almost completed the outline of 'my' Cedric. (Like I have been saying, this thing is going fast...) I am hoping to have 'Cedric' himself outlined by thrusday at the latest, and then I will show another update pic. I am soooo wanting to type in the phrase "Say hello to my little friend(s)!" for the title of that post! If you have seen -or at least, seen something relating to- the movie "Scar Face" with Al Pacino, you will recognize the quote... ;-) lol
Okay... What else? Well, first let me answer Lili's comment question from my last post: Yes. Very much so when you compare old pictures of the two of them, or when you get a pic of them in almost the same pose together. Almost freaky to me, sometimes... ;-)
Other than that... Not much to say. The weather here has been playing havoc with Kim's sinuses as welll as mine. Also, for some reason the 'excema' that I got just before our wedding is making a return engagement lately. Don't know the reason for that for sure, but I am sure that Mother Nature has something to do with that too. Oh, and the cat is still a pukey butt.
AM NOT!!!
---hack, hack, hack---Well, maybe just a little bit...
-jessie
Anyway... All kidding aside, thanks for looking at my blog again and I will see you all and sundry and bunny too! (Lili: Patapon is just simply adorable!) Have a good time of it all and I will see you at the next posting!
# posted by gC @ 5:47 PM 
Comments:
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I sooo enjoy your posts! Thanks for making me smile on this gloomy afternoon!
Cedric and friends is going to be great!
Happy Stitching...
Cedric and friends is going to be great!
Happy Stitching...
GREAT! I'd missed that one! If I had read it before, I wouldn't have asked stupidly about the relationship with Paris, would I?...
Thanks for answering my question, Greg! I am very happy you did. And Kim's mom is a beautiful woman.
Thanks for sharing the preparation phase with us! It's one I like best, together with the final stitches, the rest is filling in... lol! The fabric definitely is a great choice, together with the colours, and all the references are great -even if I just don't know anything about those sport events... well you are educating me against my own will to stay proudly ignorant about sports -Shame on you!!!
Oh, and I am a hoop addict, though with big projects, I have found that using a frame like Q snap and a pillow to hold its upper part makes it easier to deal with all the fabric, and I sometimes even stitch with both hands! I forgot to suggest this to kim!
AND, Jesse has adorable white whiskers! And lovely eyes, and she's gorgeous!
Now, thanks for sharing! I hope you've had a fine weather for a ride, here it's March: rainy and cold and windy, and it's been a week like that...
Take care!
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Thanks for answering my question, Greg! I am very happy you did. And Kim's mom is a beautiful woman.
Thanks for sharing the preparation phase with us! It's one I like best, together with the final stitches, the rest is filling in... lol! The fabric definitely is a great choice, together with the colours, and all the references are great -even if I just don't know anything about those sport events... well you are educating me against my own will to stay proudly ignorant about sports -Shame on you!!!
Oh, and I am a hoop addict, though with big projects, I have found that using a frame like Q snap and a pillow to hold its upper part makes it easier to deal with all the fabric, and I sometimes even stitch with both hands! I forgot to suggest this to kim!
AND, Jesse has adorable white whiskers! And lovely eyes, and she's gorgeous!
Now, thanks for sharing! I hope you've had a fine weather for a ride, here it's March: rainy and cold and windy, and it's been a week like that...
Take care!
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