Scotch Harebells Cross Stitch Panel

So here it is - the fourth and final of the wild flower panels, designed by John Clayton for Heritage. This was probably the easiest to stitch panel because of my stitch by colors method - I highly recommend the method for these panels!

The last three stages of the stitch by colors experiment - adding the two major background colors and the backstitch:

Pattern: Scotch Harebells by John Clayton
Canvas: white Aida 14
Floss: Rosace and DMC

In my first posting about this flower panel I mentioned that I'll try a new brand of floss - Rosace. Oh, how I regret it, I should have stuck to the well known and time-proven brand. At first glance the new floss looks the same as DMC, but obviously the thread lacks the color saturation and silky shine of DMC and the stitched picture looks bland, mat and lustreless. Never again!

I enjoyed playing with the four panels today, rearranging them and wondering how to frame them - together in one big frame or separately. Still thinking ...

Scotch Harebells Cross Stitch Panel

No sooner said than done - I've started the fourth (and final) flower panel by John Clayton. When I saw the previous three flower panels together it dawn on me - each of them individually looked nice, but somehow unimpressive, but next to each other their colors worked together and combined into a beautiful picture, that only lacked purple-blue colors for completeness. So - here come the harebells.

I'm stitching them again on Aida 14, only I decided to try Rosace floss.

Similar to the poppies, I'm stitching the  harebells by colors. But while I stitched the poppies, dividing the colors into three groups - reds, greens and background and then stitching as I please within a group, now I had the whim to stitch strictly color by color and take a picture after completing a color - something like a dissection of the picture by colors. What's the point - none whatsoever, it's neither easier nor practical, I just want to see how this will come out. I've stitched enough cross stitch projects now, so I'm curious to try different approaches just for fun :)

So - here are the first five colors, that make the flower heads:

I couldn't find pictures of harebells within my photo archives (and I searched :), so I've illustrated the real flowers with pictures from the Internet. The only bell flowers I found were these cousins of the scotch harebells that grow in the Osogovo mountain: