You found just the thing you were looking for but the colors won’t go with your decor, or they aren’t your favorites, or you just don’t LIKE them!
So, change them!
But “how do you change colors in a published design?” you ask. It’s easy, I say.
Here’s my secret to achieving a great color scheme: look in your closet and find the scarf or dress or whatever you love the most. Maybe you’ll find it in your husband’s closet. (Men’s ties have fantastic color schemes!)
If nothing jumps out, go to a fabric store and find something you love. Buy a small bit — since you love it, you will use it for something!
Next, match every color with a floss color. When you have this lovely bunch of colors, take the chart and see which ones can replace the colors you don’t like in the chart. You probably have a smaller bunch now. So on to the next step: you pull the colors from the chart you did not replace and see how they look with what you have so far.
If everything looks good, you’re good to go. If not, tweak it until it looks good to YOU. You don’t need to please anyone but yourself.
Case in point: Many, many years ago I attended a needlework competition and was pleased to see my ‘Jannet Irving Sampler’ as one of the entries … only it was in blues and greens instead of reds and golds. I liked it.
The reproduction sampler.
If I had had a phone back then that took pictures, I would have one to share here. But that was in the 1980’s and if I had had a picture-taking phone back then, I probably would have been talking technology start-up instead of cross stitch!
Besides the fact that I am not Jannet Irving and didn’t stitch the original sampler, I would have liked it anyway. I publish cross stitch charts so that people can stitch them. Any. Way. They. Want.
As I was admiring this sampler entry, a woman approached me rather shyly. She introduced herself as the stitcher of this entry and apologized (oh, no!!) for changing the colors. She mistook my shock so I very quickly assured her that no apology was needed.
My take on changes which I shared then and my feeling now is this: stitch what you love in the way you love it. This is a hobby … a leisure time activity … a pastime … NOT a job! Let me add some emphasis here. According to dictionary.com, a pastime (noun) is “something that serves to make time pass agreeably; a pleasant means of amusement,
recreation, or sport.”
If anyone (and I mean AnyOne) tells you otherwise, send them a link to this blog and tell them to get their own hobby.
And if you want to stitch a replica of Jannet’s sampler in the colors you love, just go to my shop!
The original sampler, stitched by Jannet Irving, my daughters’ great-great-great-grandmother. She probably chose her own colors!
Now, go stitch!
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When you’re not busy stitching, please “like” the Jean Farish Needleworks Facebook page, too! This is the best place to make comments about this blog as I get way too many spammers if I allow comments here.
Want to shop for JFN designs? Go to my Etsy shop!
