Last night I stitched the peach The Geisha is studying. It is the central motif of the design and stands for a long life or immortality, depending on your interpretation. It is painted in lovely shades of peach, orange sherbet, pink and rose and is obviously intented to be tent stitched. However, I wanted to do something a bit different that would make the peach stand out more than tent stitches and four shades of silk, so I stitched it in long Interlocking Goblein stitches with one strand of peach Accentuate (#304). Once I finished the Interlocking Goblein, I laid long stitches vertically on top of the peach in the "ditches" between the NP canvas threads. This made the peach more solid but didn't cover much of the lovely shading of the painted canvas. In person the peach gleams but the metallic isn't overpowering. You can also see the shading of the colors through the Accentuate. I did try stitching this with two strands of Accentuate but that hid some of the shading and it also made the peach a little too prominent.
My next step was to stitch the leaf. I used a beautiful green silk perle from Au Ver a Soie called Soie Gobelins (#225). (My spool is older and has the Kreinik label because Kreinik did distribute the thread at one time.) It is a very thin perle thread, probably #12 or even smaller in size, and when I used packed stem stitch, it looks both delicate and like a freshly picked leaf.
I probably will cut a small piece of gold lame and sew it in place underneath the peach so that it has an extra gold gleam, but I'll decide that when I finish the piece. It will take some planning as there is open background stitch nearby that I won't want the gold fabric to peek through. We'll see....
Perhaps The Geisha is just looking at the peach to see if it's really ripe but her contemplative face tells me she is thinking about something more important than dessert. I hope I managed to stitch the peach well enough that it is worthy of her interest!
Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
2 comments:
This is lovely, Jane!
You should see the peach in person! Not to brag--I just stitched over the lovely shading, but Gail did a wonderful job with the colors of a real peach. I get hungry looking at it, but there are no good peaches in the stores this time of year.
Post a Comment