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