As you may recall, the first Prairie Rug ran into a major problem with dye lot mismatching.
I used the original pattern I had made with Aunt Martha’s Tracing Paper and a Sulky Iron-On transfer pen in black (as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases). You can obtain a few transfers from the same pattern.
I chose a slightly darker purple-red and have made the brown DMC 3371 outlines thicker. One nice thing about starting over is being able to change things you were unhappy with in the first run. Punchneedle goes relatively quickly, so below is 7.5 hours of work. The border is done as well as most of the interior details. After that, it will be all green, green, green. I bought nine skeins of DMC 522 all of the same dye lot, so I hope this means the issue will not repeat itself.
Below is 15.5 hours of work. It seems to be going faster this time around now that I have the hang of the technique.
I finished stitching the Prairie Rug II with 24.75 hours of stitching time, which is a lot less than what I put into the first one I had to abandon. As I mentioned, I had a better handle on the technique so I was able to work more quickly.
I need to go back over it once more, clip any random long loops and fill in anywhere I think it needs it. Then it will be time for final finishing around the edges.
