I’ve nearly finished the right half of Autumn Leaves, working various areas as I jump around from leaf to background to another leaf. For the left half of the design, I plan to turn the canvas upside down (in relationship to Lani’s signature) and start working the whole thing in basketweave from the upper right hand corner (or what will be upper right once the canvas is standing on its head) down to the side that has been stitched. I will do the whole thing in one large section so we can compare working jumping around to simply starting in one place and working the whole design from that point. You can see in the photo above that I have worked most of the left and started in the lower left hand corner to basketweave the other half.
How am I going to do this? Big hint--magnets!
You’ll also see if you look carefully that there is a bit of a green leaf edge showing on the right bottom. This design is the center of a larger one that had green in it and that bit still shows. I will make it either brown or red as the spirit moves me by just choosing a thread for that small area. Can’t decide? Put your skein of red on the canvas there and step back. How does it look? Then switch to a skein of ivory or tan and again back away to give yourself some distance. Generally one color looks slightly better. If not, feel free to flip a coin because if you can’t see a preferred color, it doesn’t matter which one you make that little green leaf.
But for now I must say that everything looks pretty good, particularly since I stitched the finished part of Autumn Leaves in various sessions with a lot of types of threads. The goal has been to make each tent stitch look like all the rest--same size and tension. So far, so good. But occasionally I do loose concentration and some stitches are not pulled down as flat as the others. If this happens, I use a 4 inch length of Kreinik #8 metallic thread that I keep in my stitching toolbox. It’s just a piece of thread, a leftover from some project. It has no knot in the end, it is just a straight lenght of thread. When I have a tent stitch that doesn’t seem to be pulled down properly, I use my Kreinik to fix the problem.
First, thread up your needle and then figure out the down hole for your problem stitch. Once you know where to plunge the needle, just pull the metallic thread through. Kreinik is just rough enough that it will catch your thread and pull it towards the back.
This tip (My dear friend Mimi learned it on the ANG list some years back and told it to me-Thanks, Mimi!) often fixes a tent stitch that needs adjusting. It doesn’t always work, and some threads are tender enough (flat silk, for example) that a rough thread will make the situation worse, not better. But before you rip, try a little piece of metallic. After all, Kreinik is your friend!
Before I stop, I should say that since we’re half way through this all-tent stitch project, I’m already planning the next step in my stitching adventure. My Yahoo 360 blog allows me to post multiple photos in the left column header and there you will see two Squiggee canvases that will be the next stop in the Chilly Hollow NP adventure. I have finishing to do, so I thought I’d finish another small ornament myself, then start up one of the small ornaments I want to stitch. I also have three huge projects I’ve put aside while blog exploits took over I want to get back to. If everything works well, I will make up some of the small ornaments I finished last winter, start on the two little Squiggee canvases, and finish at least one of the Big Three.
Stay tuned!
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
