Made It: Rainbow Spiral Stitchery

Hello! At the end of May I showed off a stitched piece, seen HERE.   As stated in my blog post, I learned that the mesh included in the hoop appeared to be something called "radio weave cane" and was used in chair caning. 

This was a new one on me, the use of that material for counted cross-stitch. But lo and behold, I came across another radio weave cane/embroidery hoop combo a few weeks ago, at the same thrift store where I'd purchased the first one. This time, the mesh had been inserted in a 8" diameter embroidery hoop.

My friend Ms. Kayak Chickee thoughtfully gave me copies of several counted cross-stitch patterns that she thought might work for this hoop. I settled upon the one that depicted a fanciful spiral.

For embroidery floss colors, I thought a rainbow would be nice, but wasn't sure which of the hundreds of DMC colors would work. Fortunately, an online search revealed that someone else had already done the picking for me. Her choices looked like they'd work well together, so I went with that. 

Here's how it turned out:

A close-up:

For the record, I used DMC colors 321,740, 743, 704, 799, 550 and 311. Going in that order of floss used, I switched colors after every row and repeated the order until I was done. 

Not sure if I like this, though - maybe would have been better if I'd stuck to one color? The design also seems a little plain by itself in the hoop. Perhaps I'll add some backstitching  around the perimeter of the spiral to expand on the design a bit. 

Or maybe I'll take it apart and stitch something else in its place. At least I've gained a list of DMC colors to use the next time I want to stitch a rainbow!