16 hours working on the Castle for the Bayeux Quilt and I still haven't finished..each piece has to be illustrated before placing it on the quilt, the entire piece is about 2 ft 6" wide. I do each person separately because I keep getting the hands faces and hands mixed up. !!!! can't put the wrong hand on the right soldier!!!!

so I only had a couple of hours to spend on the portrait today. I try to do it in the light of the day, but by the time I got to it this afternoon.. it was storm dark again.

I don't know how you work, but I'm afraid I'm a little anal when I work… everything has to be in its place and tidy. (I drove my business partner crazy for 20 years when I was a fashion designer) This is how I set up my work for this project so I can follow the picture more than the image on the quilt, and the Bayeux is all put away as continue on this gal.

Threads at the ready- these are all the colors for the face.

I laid a base of 6 colors and this afternoon I began to do the highlights.

One of the things that makes me uncomfortable when I've seen a few other thread painted portraits is that the maker has kept the stitching lines long and all going in the same direction and then that gives direction to the thread line distracting the my view of the image.

I'm attempting to something a little differently by following the lines on her face… but I want the lines to be short, sometimes, just one or two stitches, so I'm changing thread constantly.

The highlights on her nose were placed over the base thread. But I need more definition in her upper lip so I'm doing the highlights first then the other thread will compliment and cover them a little. I'll complete one section at a time… I can't wait to tackle the eyes.!!!!!

I think the back of the quilt gives you a better idea of the stitching