Saturday, December 13, 2008

Dressing Jade


The lady's maid I call Jade on the right side of the Three Women and a Peach canvas has a robe now and I've started her hair. As you can see, I removed the medium gray outlines of her robe and restitched them in black using the same black Soy Fiber I am going to use for her hair. This same thread also created Pearl's hair, the cleaning lady on the left of this set of three women.

Robe
I discovered it was a lot easier to rip out everything (her robe, her arm, the outline stitches) and redo it when the grey outlines on her robe were just too pale. Combining medium gray outlines with medium and light blue stitches for the robe didn't give me enough contrast. I know this, having stitched a background in mint green with lilac flowers once. Although you'd think mint green and lilac aren't much alike, pale shades of both disappear into each other, which made my background muddy and without the flowers scattered around I intended. I should have learned from that but it is easy to forget lessons learned in needlepoint, as in Life! So don't you forget--mixing two light shades or even a light and medium shade may not give you enough color contrast to define the various parts of the design you are stitching.

Hair
For her hair, I mentally divided the hair into sections: the "pony tail" held by the ribbons, the tendrils of hair along her cheek and forehead, the little upturned curls at the base of her neck, the bangs at the top of her forehead and the main body of her hair. If you look at the photo, you'll see how small an area there is for her bangs, the tendrils, the nape of her neck and some of the pony tail area between the pink and blue bows in her hair. I tent stitched all of these areas except the tendrils with my Soy Silk. Tent stitches will cover all these areas and serve as padding for the top stitching I plan to do. The main body of her hair and some of her pony tail will have long lengths of my Soy Fiber laid across them in straight lines reaching from a stitch or two inside the black hair paint border to the other side almost to the edge of the paint. This raises the next layer of stitches to give a padded effect, but padding doesn't work in very small areas, hence the tent stitches. The little curls along her check had to be done differently. They are jagged vertical lines which are perfect for padded stem stitch. There are four lines, two short and two long. The short ones each got only two staggered stem stitches but the long lines had a series of rows of padded stem stitch. Sometimes I did three stem stitches, sometimes two, depending on how wide the area was.

Once the tendrils and tent stitches were done, time to pad. My first step was to grab my black and white xerox copy of the canvas and sketch in pencil how her hair flows. Once I had an idea whether an area would have slanted lines, horizontal lines, etc. of hair, I could decide how to lay the underlying padding threads. If your top layer will be straight vertical stitches, the padding is horizontal. If your lines will slant/ to the right, your padding probably will need to slant left \. This keeps the top layer raised. I will sketch this out in detail when I do the geisha's hair because she has such an elaborate wig, so this may become clearer later on. Hopefully you can see the mostly horizontal stitches of padding on Jade's hair. I'll post a second photo with her hair finished once I get the bows in her hair stitched.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Challenge Ornament: Finished with a Beaded Fringe



Above is the finished Challenge Ornament with a fringe of beads at the tip. I want this to look as Art Deco as possible as it's a Christmas present for an admirer of that style. Beaded frineg like this is very easy to do.

First, you need beads and a beading needle. Regular needles have eyes too big to go through beads unless the beads are really large. John James makes short beading needles if the 3 inch long ones are too long for you. Watch out for the sharp tips! We needlepointers aren't used to anything except tapestry needles which have blunt tips so watch yourself. I chose three colors of beads: the black Magnifica beads from Mill Hill that I used on the front of the ornament, a Magnifica metallic bead that is a mix of silver, gold and copper (I didn't use any copper ones), and a larger regular Mill Hill bead that is a teal green. The larger green bead is used only at the tip, the metal and black ones were just used as I felt like it in a mix of colors. For example, the longest length of the beaded fringe is eleven black beads, three metallic ones, six black beads and the single green bead at the tip.

I used black silk in my needle and came up underneath the twisted cord trim at the tip of the ornament, then threaded some black and metal beads on the needle until I had a nice long line. Once I thought the length was right, I added a slightly larger green bead to the needle. Then I took my beading needle back through all the beads EXCEPT the green one. That makes the green one a stopper bead at the tip of the fringe. What happens essentially is you do a U turn and go back through the bead holes again except for the green bead at the end.

Then I did a shorter length on either side of the original fringe and then two more still shorter lengths on the other side, making five lengths of fringe in all.

There are a lot of ways to add something to the tip of your Challenge ornament if you plan to hang it set in a diamond shape. Tassels look great, beaded tassels will be spectacular, and a large glass or stone bead will look great. So suit your own taste. Hope all this was enlightening for anyone who wants to try finishing their Challenge Ornament themselves and that it helps explain why finishers are expensive.

And to all the finishers out there, I salute you! I hate finishing personally and I don't have the magic fingers that pick out beautiful fabrics, trims, buttons, beads and charms that really make a piece fabulous. But you do, and I admire you greatly.
Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow