Days of Frustration with the Mexican Lady

Janet from La La Land is back with more details on the stitching of her Mexican Lady canvas. If you missed the introduction, she is working on an adaptation of a Linda Carter Holman painting from Melissa Shirley Designs. You can see the unstitched canvas below, courtesy of Laura Zickus who photographed it for Needle Nook of La Jolla’s website. Janet is working the 13 count version of this piece, although it is also available on 18 count needlepoint canvas.

http://www.needlenookoflajolla.com/storedir/proddetail.php?prod=ch118-2

Now here is Janet:

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“I’ve spent days stitching and then taking out a number of stitches for what I now call the “dratted stems.” After a number of false starts I realized what the problem was for me. The stems are a large dark slash across the canvas. If I used 3-4 different colors as called for in the painted canvas I knew I would draw too much attention to the stems. The focus of the canvas should not be the stems.

There are four different kinds of stems: Calla lily stems, the big green leaf’s stem (near Juanita’s face), the large green leaf stem in the foreground, and the rose stem. The stems are all close together. I used Splendor silk thread for all the stems.

1. I stitched the big green leaf stem in plain basketweave in two colors (S1062 for accent and S940 for the main part of the stem). I used an outline stitch to surround the stem to set if off from the others.
2. The rose stem has not yet been stitched.
3. The Calla lily stems did not lend themselves to basketweave as all you could see was a blob with no differentiation between the stems. So, I used a random long and short in two colors to add some variety without making the stems too important. Sounds easy, hmmm? After I got all the stems done in the top half I realized I had used too many plies. Oh frustration! Before I took them out I tried reducing the 5 plies to 4 plies in the bottom half and was very satisfied. So I removed the stitches from the top half and began replacing them. This is not yet completely finished but I have this Saturday deadline for Sunday’s blog entry so I photographed it as is. The colors are S1064 and S49.
4. The foreground’s green leaf stem was also stitched in two colors (basketweave) with no outline stitch. The colors are S1064 and S1062 for accent.

I have been looking at the flowers for some time and deciding what to do. I experimented with silk flowers for the roses and laid them on the canvas for you to see. We now have a 'mixed media' piece. They are not permanently affixed to the canvas, as I need to finish the rose stem and branch that the birds are sitting on. I’m not convinced this will be the final outcome for the roses. I will spend this next week working on the roses and the Calla lilies. I think the roses are a tad large but cannot make a final decision until I do the Calla lilies to determine the balance. If I do use the silk flowers I will have to take them apart layer by layer and trim a bit I think.

For all of you who have been following the progress of the Mexican Lady I appreciate your patience as I stitch, have problems to resolve, and discuss how I resolve those problems. You all can hear me muttering clear across the country.

Until next week then.”

Janet in La La Land

Note: This blog is also viewable at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

More I Stitch, More Kimono

I've been busy moving photos from the old computer the last several days. Luckily, that means I have time to stitch while waiting for one photo to finish so I can start another. You'll see my progress on Fan's kimono above (or to the left, depending on which of my blogs you visit).

The left sleeve is done. After the I stitch all over the sleeve, I put a gold metallic cross stitch on the gold dots painted there and using two plies of my darkest green DMC cotton floss, I did a few long stitches to make the slightly shamrock-looking green symbols. The inner sleeves (rose areas)and the obi sash in the front are done already. I think I need to do all the orange kimono before I stitch the long yellow trim on the sleeves or the yellow band at her neck, as well as the green border of the lower left kimono edge near her little sandals. I plan to stitch the edges in long stitches and I think stitching them first and then doing the kimono orange body might disturb the long stitches. Since I want them perfectly smooth, I'll wait.

Once the sleeve was done, I started on the kimono bottom to the left of the green edging. I forgot to mention that when the I stitch comes to a gold dot, I skip it, but when the I stitch comes up and over a green shamrock, I put the orange thread right on top I'm just using two plies of orange NP Inc. silk so the green shows up. I'll know where to put them later. But for some reason the gold doesn't show well. Even though I skipped those dots of gold and didn't stitch on top of them, I still needed my color xerox of the original unstitched canvas to find them all. More color magic! Weird what colors do, isn't it?

I'm a bit more than half done with the main body of the kimono. Its I stitches slant / like the left tail side and the sleeve. When I get to the right sleeve, I change the slant to \ . What I'll do is take the printed page of Carole Lake's instructions of how to do the I stitch, scan it with my scanner into my image software, and reverse the image so it is a mirror image. If you don't have this equipment or software, just hold the back side of your printed page up to a sunny window. You'll see the instructions reversed and can just trace over them with a pencil. Once you do two columns of the I stitch, you won't need the instructions any more. You can just follow along.

I found another batch of pictures of the grandkids to copy so I hope to finish the kimono this weekend while I do that.

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My main blog address is
http://blog.360.yahoo.com.chillyhollow

Inexplicable Behavior, NP Edition

I read the Yarn Harlot’s blog quite often. She’s very funny--for a knitter--and I find a lot of the things she runs into (a stash that grows by leaps and bounds and yet never has what you need when you need it, for example) in her knitting life resonate in my needlepoint life. So I enjoy reading what she blogs. Just today I read something there that got me thinking. The Harlot is finishing a new book on knitting just now and is in the final edit stage. Pretty soon the book will be ready and she’ll go on tour to promote it.

She’s going to set up the book signings a bit differently and explains why this way:

“It is my experience, that people don't have a clue about knitters. They think that everything we do is pretty nutty. If you don't believe me, rent a mini-van and drive to another country for a sheep and wool festival with four knitting friends. Hell, just say you have "knitting friends" and watch ordinary people glaze over. I used to think that it was a problem of stereotypes (which I still do) but now I've gained another layer of understanding. I think that knitters upset people because we lack a demographic, and because you don't understand knitting until you do it.

"Think about it. Imagine trying to finish the sentence "Knitters are...." and see what kind of trouble you can get yourself into. Can't say old, can't say young, can't say women. Can't say we all like wool, can't say we all knit acrylic. Can't say we all enjoy knitting socks, can't say that all of us see the pleasure in an afghan. We don't all knit for charity, we don't all have cats. We didn't all vote for the NDP, we don't all go to church. We don't all have grandchildren, we don't all go to Knit Night, we aren't all hip - or not hip. We don't even all stash yarn or knit in public. We are almost impossible to describe, and the things we have in common aren't really visible. Now try "Knitting is...." and you'll have the same trouble. What are you going to say? Fun? Easy? Hard? Challenging? Meditative? Cheap? Expensive? No matter what you try to say, a thousand exceptions are going to crop up and ruin your point. The truth of all of it is (I think) that the answers are so complicated because they have to do with what we've learned about knitting and how the practice of it has influenced our thinking and behaviour."

Sound familiar? Look at your NP friends and what you all like to stitch and try to sum them and it up and you’ll have the same trouble. The Harlot has an advance copy of her new book at her house (it’s called “Things I Learned From Knitting….Whether I Wanted To or Not” by Stephanie McPhee and I think I’m going to buy this one) and she goes on to explain:

“While I was carrying it around this weekend (Yeah. I know, but it's sort of a big deal to me) I was talking to someone who clearly wanted to be kind to the little author with her silly book, but totally could not get what it was about. Once we had established that there were no patterns and no instructions for knitting, he was clearly at an impasse about what the hell could be in it? "Humour and Philosophy about knitting" I said, and he looked at me exactly like I had said it was full of "the crushed and dried entrails of a wildebeest with my personal diary written in blood". It was, I realized, inexplicable to him. Just like a bunch of knitters partying in a yarn shop, or travelling to a knitting event, taking over a coffee shop or filling a bookstore, it was inexplicable knitter behaviour. Next to the stereotypes, it's probably the biggest thing that knitters face. They can't define us, so they can't understand us, so they ignore us, or stare. Now, this is not a call to arms (or needles). We are never going to get them to understand us. Instead, I have realized that the way that non-knitters find us inexplicable is an invitation. I can't be the only one who, upon realizing that they don't get us and don't care that they don't get us (in fact, they don't think about us at all) suddenly develops an urge to be as absolutely inexplicable as possible. “

If you want to read what the Yarn Harlot said in full, go to the link below and scroll down until you find her 3/24/08 entry.

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/

Now back to the inexplicable behavior part. The Yarn Harlot finds all this an invitation to have knitters be themselves in as many ways as possible in public. I think when it comes to needlepointers, we are going to use the invitation to reach out, to ask folks if they’d like to try it, if they’d like something stitched just for them, if they just want to sit and watch a bit and talk about making something with your hands.

Try it. You might find issuing invitations to the NP party fun.

Fan's Kimono

Yesterday's photo of Fan showed one row of her kimono stitched but I didn't mention it. I was amused to note no sharp-eyed person noticed and asked about it, but with the Comments system in Yahoo 360 not working well (and I haven't turned Comments on in the Blogspot mirror blog) you might have noticed and not been able to say anything. Before I talk about the kimono's stitch, let me say I forgot to mention one thing yesterday when I talked about stitching right on top of the tiny butterfly antenna in Fan's hand. In one spot I also stitched over the butterfly wing a bit. You can see that in the photos yesterday and today. I plan to put the wing right on top of the background stitch.

Now let's talk about the kimono. I've stitched the left sleeve in the stitch I plan to use, which is called the I stitch. You can see it here on Carole Lake's website. By the way, Carole has lots of cool stitches diagrammed there which aren't available online anywhere else. It's a great resource for which I am very grateful.

http://www.carolelake.com/Stitches/I-Stitch.htm

I work the I stitch in three steps. First I did a long vertical column of the / stitches, then I worked back up on one side adding the cross bar. Finally, I did the other cross bar doing back down on the other side of the original / stitches. I used two plies of my darkest orange Splendor silk. The paint shows a little so you can see the shading without my having to change colors.

I did one column of the first step in the back hem of the kimono on the left and started back up on the left with the cross bars there. Ran out of thread so I didn't finish step 2. Notice that my column on the left back hem doesn't line up with the sleeve. But that's ok. In real life any pattern on the fabric of a kimono sleeve probably doesn't line up with the rear hem fabric. This is realistic.

When I start doing the right sleeve, I'll slant the step one column the other way \ and I'll also make sure that the front of the kimono under the obi belt will all line up from the belt down to the bottom above her shoes. That's also realistic. Make sense?

This blog entry is also on my main blog at

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Learn From My Mistakes...

...or, How I Stitched the Background. LOL

Last night I worked a bit more on the pale yellow background behind Fan. The left hand side, which is the larger background area, is done. I always try to do the largest area first in a background, particularly when I am using a fancy stitch. That gives me lots of practice before I have to tackle the smaller areas where compensation is constant. As you see in the image above, Fan's right side background is very narrow along her side. I am adjusting, counting and trying to fit the background in constantly there. I wouldn't want to start in a place like this. It would be too confusing. Leave these places until later, ok?

As you probably remember, on Butterfly I didn't think to do a long row of background from one side to the other until I'd stitched Butterfly herself. That made it harder to figure out where the background diagonal ran from one side to the other. So on Fan, I did a row of background from one side to the other first. You don't have to do the entire background first, but do give yourself a guide row if your background is elaborate like mine is. The Caswell Stitch isn't hard, but it does need to be counted right each time. (eeek)

The last thing I'd like to mention about the background is that in some places I stitched right over items that are on top of the background. See the tiny butterfly in Fan's outstretched hand? It has gold antenna and I did my background on top of those gold lines. I'll put in a French-knot-on-a-stalk later for each antenna to match the same French-knot-on-a-stalk stitch I used for Butterfly's kite antenna. Reusing the same stitch unifies two canvases in a set so I want to repeat myself here.

To get back to my main point, when I stitched right over the antenna here, I made sure I carefully laid the Caswell stitches so that the paint job wouldn't show. If you hate using a laying tool, get over it for situations like this. At least do it here if you do it nowhere else. A nicely laid stitch is perfectly flat and covers beautifully, even with just two plies. I'm using two plies of my pale yellow Splendor silk. If I had not laid those stitches, the painted antenna would show and might even be noticeable after I put my little gold antenna on top.

My main blog is at
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Blogspot Posting Only

Just to let everyone know who is watching me stitch at Blogspot instead of Yahoo 360, I've started posting links to other blogs about needlepoint on the right hand side of the page. I started with the ones that I check often because they change frequently. I'll add to the list occasionally as I have time. If your favorite blog isn't there, look at the main blog website and if it's not there, either, please let me know. By the way, I put the link to my main blog website at Yahoo 360 at the top of the list for your convenience. Normally, what I post there will be identical to what I post here. Blogspot is my backup plan.

Main blogging site--
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

You can email me at chilly hollow at hot mail dot com
Thanks!

Blogspot and Sue's Google Reader

Yesterday I got a nice email from Sue who is very glad I set up a mirror blog on Blogspot. Sue says her Google News Reader reads the Blogspot version of Blog much better than it reads the Yahoo 360 version. Google owns Blogspot so I guess that's why their news reader works better for it. Not being familiar with news readers I asked Sue about them and this is what she said:

"...this software allows me to subscribe to blogs and it appears on screen similar to a Window Explorer screen. The left side - a thin tall pane - displays the name of all the blogs I've subscribed to. When I single-click on a blog name on the left, the right side pane displays the most recent feeds - just the posts, without the blog headers or lists of links folkes may have created. One cool thing it does is that it'll bold the name of those blogs who've updated since I last viewed them thru the Google Reader software. So no more checking on blogs just to find they've not been updated! Streamlines my blog checking. Isn't modern technology wonderful?! The only drawback seems to be that those blogs on typepad or yahoo only display the text of the entries ... I have to open those blogs in my browser to access the pictures. "

I asked Sue for further clarification about how the Google Reader looked. Here's what she said:

"Think of your blog as twofold - the "shell" and the "meat." The shell generally includes a header (where many include a pretty graphic to remain at the top of each page), footer (many include copyright notices at the bottom ... and many blogs automatically include navigation here - the "prior posts," "home," and "newer posts"), and extras - here it's totally up to the user what they want to include but most include navigation links USUALLY at the sides (lots of blog software allows for links to recent posts; lots allow for labels so readers can, for instance, search for all "woodlawn" posts; etc) - but blog software can also allow the user to insert special html coding or javascript so the blog owners can insert their own slide shows or video, counters, guestbooks, etc. The content of the shell shows up on every page. Then, there's the "meat" of the blog - your posts. What you see within Google Reader is the posts themselves in that right-hand side pane - without the part of the area I've noted as within the shell. IF you include a link within your post, it's still treated as a link and is clickable. Also, the name of the blog itself is a link that you still have the option to click on to open. I love the Google Reader and would recommend it to anyone who has bookmarked blogs they read on a regular basis!"

If you are interested in using Google Reader, here is what I found out about it from Google:

http://www.google.com/reader/view/?hl=en&source=en-mmm#directory-welcome-page

Some other needle bloggers at Yahoo 360 are setting up mirror sites on Blogspot as well. Some of them are finding that Blogspot versions of their pictures are better than on Yahoo 360 and others find the opposite. I guess this has to do with how we make our photos and how we export them to each blog. Plus your own monitor may well display some things better than others. So experiment and see where you like the postings best. For now I plan to post everything to both blog sites. I prefer Yahoo 360's features, but it is bug-ridden and I feel I have to have a backup plan.

Sue, thanks very much for helping me understand how Google News Reader works. Hope someone finds Sue's information useful.

Main blogging site--
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Want to Stitch a Rug?

This Maggie Lane design is painted on needlepoint canvas and comes with yarns. The seller has several other rug kits painted from her designs. Click on View Other Items under Meet the Seller to see them all. This seller has offered several rug kits over the last two weeks. Of course these are charted in one of Maggie Lane's books if you own them.

Here's the link to eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350038914725&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:us

Mirror blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Fan's Obi

Since I was setting up and learning how to use the new computer AND the mirror blog at Blogspot this weekend, I didn't have time to stitch much. However, I did finish stitching Fan's obi. At least I think I did. I don't have time this morning to check for missed stitches and it's too dark anyway. I like to hold a canvas up to the sun and see if I see holes where stitches were missed and the earliest I'll be able to do that is tonight. However, I might be able to tell from the scan I did.

Whether I finished or not, I wanted to point out that the bottom ribbon is alternated mosaic stitch and the other three parts of the obi are all diagonal stitches that alternate between being over one intersection and over two. Somehow the bottom ribbon looked good in a different stitch but I didn't have the right sized space to repeat it in any of the other sections.

So you don't have to use the same stitch in similar areas on a canvas. Just see what looks "right" to you. If it looks right, it probably is.

As a reminder, the main blog is at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

The Mexican Lady Has a Name & Major Jewelry

Janet from La La Land is back with more details on the stitching of her Mexican Lady canvas. If you missed the introduction, she is working on an adaptation of a Linda Carter Holman painting from Melissa Shirley Designs. You can see the unstitched canvas below, courtesy of Laura Zickus who photographed it for Needle Nook of La Jolla’s website. Janet is working the 13 count version of this piece, although it is also available on 18 count needlepoint canvas.
http://www.needlenookoflajolla.com/storedir/proddetail.php?prod=ch118-2

Now here’s Janet.
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You can see the results of some of my thinking here. First, no flowers this week; as it turns out I had to do the stems first and they gave me fits and I've ripped out a lot. I know I told you I'm not a perfectionist but sometimes one has to admit defeat when the problem is not "fixable."

So, today I give you the completed face, hair, hands and jewelry. As I worked on the Mexican Lady she came to life and she now has a name. I dubbed her Juanita. Juanita is not poor; on the contrary she is well dressed wearing a pearl necklace, pearl and "diamonds" earrings, a heart shape "diamond" on her finger, and an interesting "gold" and "diamond" bracelet.

Her face and hands are stitched in basketweave (DMC floss, color number 407). The darker color on her face and hands is also DMC but I failed to note the number. Her fingernails and lips are the same red silk. Soie d'Alger was used in her blouse which was also stitched in basketweave.

Juanita's hair is black Flair (color F501), stitched in basketweave. I thought about different stitches for her hair but decided to keep it simple. I chose Flair as it gives the hair a little shine.

I do a lot of beading and checked my stash for pearl beads. I strung the necklace on beading thread (do not use a cheap substitute as it will stretch and break). I used a smaller pearl at the ends of the necklace so it would lie flatter where the thread goes into the canvas, to be tied at the back of the canvas. Then, at several points I tied down the necklace with a single stitch from the back, over and between two pearls and back down to the canvas. This keeps the necklace flat. Juanita's earring is made from two small pearls, with a #1 size clear glass bead from Sundance on each end. I used a single thread, coming up from the back of the canvas, running the needle and thread through all the beads and then back through the beads again.
The glass bead on the end holds the earring in place. I also used a single stitch across and between two pearls to hold the earring in place.

Juanita had to have a "diamond" ring. Looking in my stash I found the perfect one - clear and heart shaped. The picture shows the diamond reflecting red but it is clear. The heart is a type of flat rhinestone found in craft stores. It is held down with a clear bead (same as in the earring and on the bracelet). Bring the needle up from the back of the canvas, through the hole(s) in the stone and then put a small bead on the needle and stitch back through the hole(s).

{see bracelet close up photo above right)

The bracelet: First I stitched it in basketweave using Neon Rays (color NP51) which is a pretty coppery color. Then using a slight diagonal satin stitch I stitched over the basketweave rows twice to make the bracelet have a raised and a rounded shape. Since Juanita is not poor I added "diamonds" to the bracelet to contrast against the large flowers. I used the same clear beads as seen on the earring. I like the result as the added sparkle holds up nicely against the large mass of green of the stems and the large flowers.

*Note*: this is really a "figure it out as I go" piece. Sometimes even with the most advanced planning I realize things have to change when they get actually stitched due to size, color, texture, or shape. I think there needs to be a visual balance. I've already mentioned my personal 60/40 % rule, which I gleefully abandoned on this piece.

See you next week, hopefully with some flowers and the dratted stems.

Janet in La La Land

[This is a mirror blog for Blog which is at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow )

What Color Is Your Easter Egg?

By coincidence, Gay Ann Rogers and Laura Perin are both talking about color on their blogs. GAR is showcasing the various colorways people have picked for her new mystery project, a geometric chart. If you work backwards, you'll also see her New Year's Resolution ornament in various colors.
http://gayannrogers.blogspot.com/
LP is showing off a charted kimono design of hers in two colors using overdyes.
http://two-handedstitcher.blogspot.com/
It is fascinating to see how a design changes depending on the color. Might even be tempting enough for me to pull out a charted design I have underway and work on it. Maybe....
Miss Chicken
also blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com/

The Easter Bunny Brought It

I didn't get a chocolate bunny this year or a painted egg. I got a Squiggee!

Gail Hendrix produces two series of NP designs each year. One is under The Point of It All's design name and is is larger, classic designs. The other is small, fun ornaments under her Squiggee name. The first link is Gail's Blog, which showcases various canvases and shows off charming photographs of the real Squiggee.

http://www.squiggeedesigns.blogspot.com/

http://www.squiggeedesigns.com/

http://www.thepointofitallonline.com/

She also does custom designs. I saw a frog weight that Gail had designed which had lots of underwater images and I just loved the koi on it. I asked Gail if she would do an 18 count ornament just featuring the koi. And here it is! She even sent the little colored pearls to decorate the design.

Many of the Squiggee ornaments have beads, charms or buttons to add to their fun. I have no idea where Gail finds all these little things but I think the pearls in their varying sizes and colors add a great deal to the canvas. My little Halloween stocking, which is also from Squiggee, has buttons for the trick or treat kids' costume masks. Very cute!

I'm trying to rationalize stitching both of these right away. For now, my koi and my Halloween stocking are hidden in a drawer so I can't spend all my time drooling over them instead of finishing my last little Japanese girl for the ANG Auction.If you have absolutely no self control, I think both designs are still available....

Signed, The Master Enabler

also blogging at http://360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Fibers & Threads Shops for You

I've noticed a new website that promises to have a huge stock of hard-to-find threads for your shopping pleasure. And there is no shipping charge for regular shipments via the U.S. mail.

http://www.fibersandthreads.com/why_us.htm

They are affiliated with a shop in New Hampshire. I don't know anything about them but if indeed they can dig up hard-to-find threads for us and deliver them at no shipping, they are worthy of a bookmark!

http://www.contoocookneedleworkgallery.com/

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mirror site
http://360.blog.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Warning

This 14 count canvas (by Dee? Might be dede Odgen?) is up for sale on eBay. I thought you might enjoy the laugh. I certainly did!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Warning-Needlepoint-May-Be-Cute-Hand-Painted-Canvas_W0QQitemZ260221922858QQihZ016QQcategoryZ3107QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

or Tiny URL

http://tinyurl.com/38jkuv