Wednesday, January 6, 2010

A Little Santa, More Laying Tool Case



Last night I added a few inches of trim to Surfin Santa's edge.  Not as much as I wanted as I discovered I'd accidentally cut a thread in his hair trimming the canvas around him.  So I had to apply some of my Aileen's Tacky Glue on it and smooth it down, then let it dry.  I actually only worked on the edging about an hour last night, but not to worry, I had my laying tool case to stitch on instead.  I finished my leaf sections and worked the stems for the flowers on the front side of the case.

Yesterday, Kim Herself showed up here in the Comments. After I recovered (Kimberly CRUM?!  IN PERSON?  HERE!!!!?!?!) I decided I should explain that I am not stitching this in the order that Kim recommends.  I did the leaf before the little flowers to help me pick colors since I'm deviating from the instructions.  My leaf is not one color, but three, and I wanted to see what that looked like before choosing flower stem colors.  The flowers themselves are little bead clusters that I'll add at the end once most of the stitching is finished and I've chosen bead colors.  When you pick colors on the fly like this, you do have to be adaptable!

I added metallic stitches in my favorite chocolate milk-mixed-with-silver Kreinik color Spiced Chai # 4002 (size #8 braid) in each corner and also used the same color (but in size #16 braid) for the flower stem on the right.  The other flower stems are the same Antique Gold as the scissors or the pale pink Trebizond silk perle in the border pattern.

In the photo you can see if you squint hard that I've started the little cashmere boxes in the upper left hand corner of the front side, using my ecru Subtlety silk perle from Rainbow Gallery.  This background is supposed to be framed cashmere blocks or tent stitches but I choose to use the gold flecked ecru canvas so I think I'll skip the tent stitches altogether and perhaps even the tent stitch framework around the cashmere blocks.  I've not used this type of canvas before but I love how it looks.  It is very elegant and the sparkle also shows up occasionally through your stitching.  I notice it on the tent stitched areas of the leaves, for example.

You know how you can see white "dandruff" on your needlepoint if your thread doesn't cover completely?  The gold flecked canvas takes advantage of that and shows sparkles here and there.  It is very pretty.  As far as I remember, you can buy ecru canvas with gold or silver flecks.  I think white canvas comes both ways, too, and I've seen gold flecked black canvas  but not silver flecked black.  Your shop can guide you about what is available the next time you have a canvas design with a lot of unstitched areas you want to use this with.

I hope to concentrate on the trim around Surfin Santa tonight and to pick beads for my laying tool case on Saturday, if the snow expected on Thursday night and Friday morning isn't too bad.

I hate winter!

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