2009 ANG Auction Scheme

I've been thinking about what to stitch for the ANG Auction in Milwaukee in 2009. I rummaged around in my pile of painted canvases, trying to pick something that would bring ANG big bucks and be fun and educational to stitch. (Blog has standards, after all--if it isn't fun and I'm not going to learn anything, why am I stitching it?) I know that very large pieces and sets draw lots of bidders and since I'm not up to stitching a rug for ANG, I needed to find an ornament set I might do that would interest the folks with the money in their pockets.... That's when I remembered the old issue of Needlepointers pictured above.

See those angel ornaments? Those are the Household Pet Guardian Angels, designed by Kandace Merric. (first pet in Needlepointers magazine, October/November 1996). I've always thought they would be a fun stitch but what am I going to do with them? With the dogs and the cat so rambunctious, we don't do a Christmas tree for the holidays. Well, the Auction sounds like a great idea! Then I really got to thinking. Why not invite you all to stitch one of the angels, too? We could have a great pile for Auction! I think if we stick to not altering the stitches and using the same color in tent stitches for the background, they would look great in a riot of colors, sort of like folk art.

Naturally it didn't take long for me to realize that not everyone has a stack of old Needlepointers on their bookshelf. Fortunately, the designer Kandy Merric herself and the ANG Board came to my rescue at this point. They have agreed to let me scan and distribute the instructions for a pet guardian angel to folks who will stitch that one for the Auction.

Kandace Merric has also kindly agreed to stitch two angels herself which will be unique and not one of the six original designs. I am not sure which household pets she will do--a lot depends on how the animal head shapes work with the angel outfits she has in mind--but there will be two mystery angels to join the cat, the dog, the rabbit, the rat, the fish and the parakeet designs in the original set.

I owe a huge debt of thanks to Ms. Merric who has agreed to come out of NP teaching retirement (she concentrates her attention these days on dog rescue groups in the NYC area) to not only allow me to do this project, but to contribute to it herself. I also am very grateful to ANG's President Barbara Richardson, to Sandy Rodgers the editor of Needlepointers who helped point me to the right place for permission, and to Ann Strite-Kurz who contributed encouragement and a contact email address for Ms. Merric. No matter whether anyone else stitches an angel for the Auction, this has already been a huge group effort.

Next time I'll post a bit about the individual pet guardian angels and how I plan to organize this project.


Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Jane Learns Pink Isn't Always Pretty

I've actually made great progress on Squiggee's Japanese portraits. The ladies have all their white skin stitched in the photo above with basketweave stitch executed in DMC cotton perle #8. I had a ball of it I picked up somewhere on sale (along with a ball of ecru and one of black) and decided it would render the white skin of the women in smoother stitches than a white floss. I am happy with how it turned out.

If you look carefully at the faces, you see that the features are outlined in dark gray (4 plies of DMC cotton floss in 318) using mostly half cross stitch. I stitched the gray outlines first, then the skin, and finally the gray features like the noses, making sure not to drag a line of dark gray from one stop to another which might show behind the white.

My first thought was to change the skin color of the women to a pale pink and use a slightly darker pink for these outlines. I often use silk in these situations as the sheen makes the faces more real. I consulted the designer Gail Hendrix, who told me switching colors would throw off the muted color scheme, although she thought I could get away with darker/lighter shades of the colors. So I left the faces and arms dead white and now that the faces and arms are stitched, the white is growing on me once I put aside my pre-conceptions that I needed to make this piece realistic, which it is not. This piece was designed with Japanese artistic sensibilities in mind.

Before I end this, I should mention a few things about stitching with white cotton perle. I stuck to short lengths and tried to remember to keep my needle perpendicular to the NP canvas when I stitched so as not to abrade the cotton perle much. In my experience it looses its shine if you run a length through the canvas too many times. I also discovered it was really important to wash my hands each time I stitched with white thread. The cotton perle easily absorbed the tiniest amount of dirt on my fingers which of course shows as a smudged spot on the canvas.

Before I forget, I have not stitched the red mouths yet. Right now I'm debating whether to leave the area unstitched or not.

Next time I'll talk about choosing a background stitch and thread. Until then, remember that Pink isn't always Pretty! LOL

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow