Roses for Juanita, the Mexican Lady

Today Janet Moyer is back to talk about Juanita, the Mexican Lady canvas from Melissa Shirley that is an adaptation of a Linda Carter Holman painting called “Secrets.” 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

Janet finished the roses this week and the following is her description of how she did them.
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"Once I committed to the fabric Calla Lilies (white stars on white fabric) I knew I would probably have to change my mind about using silk roses and sewing them on by hand. Sure enough, it was just too much. The silk flowers were too high and even if I trimmed them I knew matting and framing the piece would be difficult with too-high flowers. (You can only use so many spacers on a mat). So what to do for the roses?

I thought and thought about it and tried a number of different stitches which I didn't like (too fat, too heavy, too competitive with the lace shawl). I needed to use two shades of yellow, and a pale orange for the flowers. I tried basketweave (too boring),stem stitches (nope), then satin stitches (not my favorite stitch to do but I dutifully tried it). I bought a lovely hand-dyed silk ribbon (too big). While I love beading I thought that all-beaded roses would be too much glitter on the piece and I already had a lot of sparkle. I looked at my stitch books. Nothing satisfied me. Finally in desperation I went to Michael's (a local crafts store) and bought the colors I needed in beads, floss, and tiny ribbon. I went home and sat at the table and said THINK! Desperation sometimes produces Inspiration.

After sewing yellow floss in a 5 spoke pattern on each rose on the canvas, I began to weave the tiny ribbon under and over the floss. So far so good until I realized I would have the same problem with the ribbon standing up too high that I had with the larger ribbon. The resolution for me was to turn *over* the ribbon over every so often and tack it down with a matching bead. Eurkea! It worked and the results are on the screen. I think the roses look like the fully bloomed, blowzy roses you see in an old fashioned garden – fragrant and beautiful and one just wants to inhale the gorgeous fragrance of them.

One of the challenges of stitching a painted canvas is to come up with your own stitch guide. I never do one completely before stitching (how do those professionals do it?) as I have to play with the colors, the stitches, and try different things. This is a busy piece as I chose to interpret it, with color, decorative stitches, sequins, beads, and trim. I violated my own 60/40 rule and had a great time doing it.

Next week I will show you the completed canvas and tell you Juanita's story. Aren't you curious?

Janet in La La Land

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NOTE: If you would like to look at Janet’s first version of the roses, look for her March 30th blog entry. Her calla lilies, the other major floral motif on this piece, are shown in the April 6th entry. If you are at the mirror blog (below) choose dates from the list at the bottom of the page.

http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com

If you read this from the Yahoo 360 blog, use the calendar in the middle of the left-hand column.

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

Fan's Fan (and more)

Yesterday I finished stitching the pale yellow background and the red double border (slanted stitches over the painted border, then a row of tent on the outside for finishing ease) and the fan that gives Fan her name.

The fan itself posed several problems. It is a major focal point for this design. Little Fan's face peeks around it, after all, and faces are what we look at first on canvases. I stitched her face in tent stitches, then emphasized the hair ornaments a bit with beads and padded stitches. So the fan in her hand had to be slightly emphasized also to balance the hair ornaments on the other side of her face. Do up the hair ornaments but not the fan and you might make her face seem lopsided.

I ended up stitching the fan in long stitches, blending my rose to pink shades as I went. I irnored the leaf and blossom design on the fan as I stitched, leaving those areas empty. Yesterday I went back and stitched the leaves first using my medium green DMC floss (2 plies) and making cross stitches across the green threads. This gave them a bit more rounded look than the slanted / tent stitches would do but it didn't make them too prominent. When it comes to flowers, the blossoms are always more important than the leaves. Then I tent stitched (two plies of my pale yellow Splendor silk) the flower area. I wanted a foundation for the tiny little French knots I put on top as the flowers.

The French knots themselves are two plies of the same thread, wrapped only once around the needle, with my tension as controlled as I could make it while wrapping the thread and then plunging the needle with the threads held where they belonged as much as possible. Most of the flowers only have 3-4 French knots on them. The underlying tent stitches provide color so that you don't have to cover everything with French knots. I thought having too many French knots would make the flowers a tad too prominent. After all, this is supposed to be a paper or perhaps a silk fabric fan that would not have the flowers sticking out. They would just be painted on or woven in.

I need to finish the kimono today and then turn my attention to the butterfly in Fan's other hand. After that, I need to think about what outline stitches I might need to add on her kimono, face or hands.