Sunday, October 4, 2009

Bunny Ears, Before and After

Yesterday I showed you a large photo of the Rabbit Geisha and talked about the problem I was having stitching the area between her two ears.  Jeanne put it best in the Comments when she said, "Even though the count may be correct, compensating a large-scale stitch in areas like this just looks distracting. Tent stitch seems like a good choice!"  I hadn't realized that the scale was off viewing the split pavilion between the ears, but Jeanne is right.  








Compare this shot to yesterday's without enlarging and you may not see much difference but close up there is quite a change.  To the left is the Before shot of the geisha's ears when I stitched split pavilion there.









And on the right is the After shot with basketweave between her ears.  When you are several feet from the canvas, the basketweave disappears and all you really see is the smoothness that blends into the surrounding split pavilion.  Yesterday before I pulled out that area and restitched it, the choppy nature of split pavilion in this small area make it stand out and look like a mistake.


Scale is really important in stitching painted canvases.  You have to pick the right-sized stitch for your area and sometimes that means switching to another stitch if you have a tiny area to compensate. 


I've seen several elaborate floral canvases with decorative backgrounds where the fancy background stitch ends just before the flower petals' fancy stitch begin, and the margin between background and flower is done in tent stitches, normally in the background color (but not always as sometimes the flower petal color looks better in tent).  


Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Canvas of the Day: WICKED!



Today's Canvas of the Day is one of the new Wicked series of witches from Leigh Designs. This piece is one of six witch canvases, all done in pairs so that each witch has a sibling with a similar face and harvest moon in the background. All of the witches are on brown 18 count mono canvas and they are all pretty big -- 11 inches by 14 inches.



All of the series can be seen here.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp512x.html

I choose the Wicked Elfrida as my Canvas of the Day because I love the skull on her hat. I think that would be fabulous stitched in Kreinik's glow-in-the-dark thread, shaded with gray silk. Or use all silks for a more subtle shine. Leave the skull eye sockets and nose hole unstitched and add one ruby red bead in the middle for the eye. Use an oval stitch to cover the moon in light coverage, picking the lightest shade of gold from the moon for your thread. You can use DMC cotton here, just one ply, and it'll look fabulous as the shading will show through. You will have to lay the thread, though, for the best effect.

Tent stitch the hat in blacks and purples with something gorgeous like Vineyards Silks to give a slight shine to the wooly felt of the hat. Then do the purple ribbon in as many shades of purple silks as you need to match the lovely painted shading, using diagonal long stitches to cover. You'll need a laying tool as you want maximum shine for the ribbons.

Couch the stems using either the new Memory Thread from DMC that is wired or try couching a Kreinik metallic brown thread with a matching blending filament for some sparkle. The leaves can be done in either tent (the small oval ones) or in diagonal mosaic or even herringbone. Use a matte thread like Mandarin floss or cotton floss or even a nice wool blend like Burmilana for the leaves.

Pad the berries and then do small long stitches on top to make them a bit dimensional. I'd use silk here to make them shine.

The flyaway hair could be a thin wool or Burmilana or one of the fuzzy threads like Alpaca or Cashmere. Use a sharp needle and stem stitch to put these strands right on top of the tent stitches of the witches' hat.

Elfrida's pasty skin should be tent stitched, using perle cotton or a perle silk like Trebizond, or if you can't find the right colors, try blending DMC cotton in shades of white and gray and grayish purple. I'd consider leaving her nose until last and padding it in long stitches over something like half a Q-tip like Amy Bunger does. But this isn't necessary. If you want to try the "Bunger beak," practice on some scraps first and see if you like the look.

Now the background. It occurred to me that it would be fun to cover the background with the word Wicked repeated over and over again, either horizontally or vertically, your choice. Match the canvas' brown color using whatever non-shiny thread you can find. It might be even better to find a slightly lighter or darker shade of brown, depending on how subtle you want the letters to be. There are lots of free charted letters available on the Internet. I happen to like Barbara Bergsten's versions here.
http://www.barbarabergstendesigns.com/stitch_guides.htm

This is not a real stitch guide, not done in any particular order, either (although I'd probably stitch the background, then the moon, then the witch's hat, then the details starting with the skull). But perhaps my approach will give you ideas for the witch of your dreams--or nightmares!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow