Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Golden Sleeves



The Rabbit Geisha's sleeves were a puzzle to me when I first looked at them.  Are those fan shapes on the sleeves?  Can I do long stitches covered by couched gold lines?  What will make the sleeves harmonious with the rest of her outfit but not blend into the background?

I finally decided that the gold lines on the sleeves need to be tent stitched.  Couching and long laid stitches just seem to be too heavy a look for the sleeves when the body of the clothing is light coverage stitches.  In the photo you see that I've managed to get all the gold lines tent stitched (using Kreinik's braid #12 in Gold 02) on the sleeves and have also stitched the gold line around the hem of the tunic and the outlines around the sleeves.  It took me several nights to get it all done but now I am ready to tackle the problem of what to put inside the blue sleeve areas.  For the answer, you'll have to wait.  I want to do another few rows of background near both sleeves so it is easy to tell how what I choose for the inside of those gold lines will look with the background as the two areas are very close in color.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
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