Conversion Crisis

I'm having a crisis of confidence in my floss choice for my latest project, The Goode Huswife's Home Sweet Home. Having spent far too much money on stash lately, I couldn't justify the cost of the called-for Gloriana silks, so I thought, well, the WDW threads listed as an alternative would probably be fine. So that's what I bought (though I did buy one skein of Gloriana that had no alternative). But now, having stitched on it a bit, I'm thinking I made a mistake. This is what the colors are supposed to look like:

Below is how mine is starting out. The flower is fine because that's the correct floss. But the doors look very dull compared to the original. You can just make out the start of the green of the leaves (under the right side of the roof) and the color is way darker than it should be. I could live with these things but the rest of the WDW threads are not very variegated, and none of the colors I have for the bird match the picture at all. It's such a pretty little piece, but I find myself not wanting to stitch on it very much. I guess the thing to do is put it away until I can afford the silks (I have to say that I like CC Belle Soie much better than Gloriana from my limited experience with it - with BS knots slip right out while I've had to give up on the Gloriana once or twice and start afresh). How often does this happen to you? Are you usually happy with the conversions offered? Or is it best to bite the bullet and go with what the designer used? Next time I'll pay more attention when I am kitting up a piece, that's for sure.

But in the meantime, I have other fish to fry. Yesterday I got this adorable chart (complete with a skein of Belle Soie and the buttons for it) to make a button box or bag. It was my first order from Jan at Only One Ewe Needlework, and it was a great experience - Jan is so friendly and the order was dispatched so quickly. Do check out her shop and her wonderful blog.

And Carol sent me the chart for her lovely design Sew Red, which I just love. This one will require a trip to the LNS to find the perfect red floss for it. Thank you, Carol!

And now a Blogger question - when you make a post, do you upload each picture first or do it as you go along? The latter is always how I've done it and it's been a real pain. Today I uploaded each picture and then did the typing. Have I been a complete idiot and been doing it wrong all along? Is there a Blogger for Dummies website out there? Oh my gosh, there is!