1:1 Round Robin CQ Square (long and pic heavy)

I finally finished my 1:1 RR CQ square! Yay!

But first, another picture of my favourite garden rose. ( I'm sure you're tired of it, but I had to share anyway. Last one, I promise! )       
The frills, the colours, the shadows, the glow.....I just loved the whole composition.

And my hydrangea is in flower.

I had shown you this tease a couple posts ago, and promised to show you more when I had finished. The clusters of flowers were tatted with Josephine knots : the leaves with Josephine chain (for lack of a better term), and the trunk with layers of twisted thread woven over and through a straight stitch base. The threads used were: Caron's Wildflowers in 'Tropic Seas' and 'Blue Lagoon' , DMC cotton perle 5 in a light turquoise, dark turquoise metallic thread.

This is a Round Robin CQ Square that I've been doing for NickiLee of NickiLee's Raviolee Dreams ( http://cqnickilee.blogspot.com/ ) who has a wonderful blog and creates the most beautiful hand-dyed laces. Her CQ squares are outstanding! I met her when I joined CQ International, and we made a swap: my tattings for her laces. She sent me her CQ square at the end of May. Talk about being in over my head!

I was so excited, I started working on it before I remembered to take a pic. Aren't the colours and the materials just gorgeous?  My favourite is the mottled blue/green/pink triangle on the left. I've always liked turquoise, in fact my little Honda is turquoise, but after working on this square, I think I love turquoise. I used my hand-cut stamps to mark some designs on the fabric, and decided to work with the circles and curves in the existing patterns. The theme NickiLee chose was 'Winged Garden Visitors'. I loved it.

I felt, though, that the cream material was such a contrast to the blues and greens, and wondered how to make it more harmonious with the other colours. I liked the touch of pink, but decided the ugly avocado greens in the busy pattern just clashed.

So, work with the theme, and circles, my stamps, incorporate cream elsewhere, and tone down that green. And, I wanted to try not to create a pictorial square, but rather have my embellishments all around. Hunh! Where to start? I began creating a sun, and a large allium.        I won't take you through each step. I'll show some close-ups of embellishments, and the completed square.                                 Here's a  dragonfly tatted  with Caron's  Wildflowers 'Tropic Seas', and beaded with turquoise crystals in the tail.

Picking up the soft pink and working with the creams and circles, I embroidered the leaf spray, added clusters of Josephine knot flowers in Yarnplayers HDT 'peace' in size 40. Then beads were added in groups and sprays, and a pink, glittery ladybug was perched among the flowers.

This butterfly was embroidered on another fabric, stitched onto the square and stuffed with fiberfill. Is that called trapunto? This allowed me to carry some yellow into the other materials. The antennae are tatted with a double strand of black floss, and are flexible, attached only at the black crystal bead head.

This is another close-up of the 'tree of life' in front of the circle sun motif, and also shows a button spray in all the main colours of the square, sitting on the cream seam.

The last two photos are different shots of the completed square. I am pleased with the individual motifs and embellishments I added. Visually, the eye does tend to follow the elements around the square, but I am not sure that harmony of the colours was attained. What do you think?     I did cover up some of that avocado green with a gathered turquoise ribbon, formed into a flower. The centre is a  translucent,'sugar', domed button.

I added the following winged garden visitors: 3 bumblebees, 2 butterflies, 1 dragonfly, 1 hoverfly, 2 ladybugs. As a fan of pictorial squares (I think that's the term used when there is a definite top and bottom to the square, but, I could be wrong) I am a little disappointed with my design, and think the elements might have worked better as a whole had they been placed differently. Do you agree? 

Well, all in all, as this is only my third CQ square, I don't absolutely love it. I don't hate it either. Both good and bad points are obvious, and made more so by seeing the completed square on the screen. I do hope, though, that NickiLee will like it, in spite of all its flaws. 

Here's hoping you all have a safe and happy long holiday weekend.

Thanks for visiting.

Hugs from Suz