On Monday afternoon, I put the last few stitches in Jeanette Douglas’ Royalty ABC. It has been a long but enjoyable project. And one which I made lots of changes too. I am absolutely delighted with the finished product. (Click the picture for a slightly larger, but still un-ironed, version.)
Royalty ABC from Jeanette Douglas
It was stitched using the called for fibres (a combination of Rainbow Gallery Splendor, NPI, Soie d’Alger, Bijoux and Gloriana silk), on hand-dyed fabric from Enchanting Lair in the colourway Heritage. (If you haven’t tried her fabric yet, I highly recommend you give it a go. Her colours are fabulous!)
I did make several changes to the design, as I mentioned. The most noticeable, perhaps, is leaving out row 15, which was three over-one crosses. Instead, I moved up row 23, a satin stitch pattern, in order to keep the spacing more or less even.
On row 10, I added some beads to the middle crown:
Royalty ABC - row 10
I also added beads to row 20.
Royalty ABC - row 23
And on row 31, I left out both of the over-one crowns on the side, and the date in the middle of the heart. Instead, I added the crown charm to the heart. (It is included in the floss pack because it is intended for the box, which I am not going to stitch.) I added the date to the final box, with my name.
Royalty ABC - row 31
My other big omission on this design is row 19, which was a series of diamonds made out of Queen stitches. I seriously dislike Queen stitches. I didn’t replace that row with anything, since I think the spacing looked fine.
Overall, I think this is a stunning design, and I am really looking forward to finishing it into a bell pull. I have the finishing kit, which includes the bellpull hardware, and the leaflet has very detailed instructions. Hopefully, I’ll make some time to finish it up in the next few weeks.