Summer Louise Explores Scotch Stitch

I took a photo yesterday as I continued to try and clear the "black" ice off the driveway.
Black ice is ice that is almost invisible. You can't see it, so it is very easy to slip and fall if it is on your porch, driveway, etc. Many car accidents are probably caused by black ice when the driver brakes without realizing he or she is on a patch of invisible ice. We got snow on Tuesday and an ice storm on top of it Wednesday so this has been a loooong process. I think I moved 3156 shovelfuls of snow/slush/ice in shoveling the tire paths as I had to go up and down the driveway twice, once after the snow and once after the ice. I also made a trip down on Thursday to try and remove patches of ice, which is when I took this photo. The problem with ice storms in cold weather that once the ice goes down, you can't remove it. I had to put cat litter on the thick ice in front of the garage to drive out yesterday to go to work. Mother Nature is far more powerful than we are!

She also left behind great beauty as you can see in the photo. Much as I grumbled as I worked, I am grateful to live in such a lovely place.

Now on to needlepoint! I'm still pooped from all that physical activity so last night I simply basketweaved background. However, Summer Louise Truswell (finisher extraordinaire) was busy. She's posted a new blog entry in her A Stitch A Week series. This week she discusses Scotch Stitch and its variations, and tell syou how to manipulate the stitch to get interesting dimensional effects or to make a beautiful corner. All she is doing with each stitch is fascinating and makes you think that taking a second look at stitches you use all the time to come up with ways to manipulate them is very worthwhile.
http://www.summerlouise.com/2009/01/stitch-each-week-scotch-stitch.html

I look forward to next week to see what she comes up with then!

UPDATE: Just remembered that ANG's newest workshop by mail is a Scotch Stitch variation project from Marnie Ritter. If Summer's Scotch Stitch blog entry entranced you, check this out.
http://www.needlepoint.org/byMail/index.php

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

Fish Eyes

As you see, I did get some things done yesterday besides shoveling slush off a driveway that is 3/10 of a mile long.

I took out the green metallic on her bodice and tried the silver of her halo but it wasn't right either. The best looking option seemed to be to lay done long stitches in the Tiara which mixes green and gold and blue. If it looks good, it's right so there we are.

The fish has no eyes yet (they go in on top) but she does have a head and fin. The instructions had pink and rose for the colors for this area and I stuck with those colors as they look great with the blues and greens fo the clothing and wings. I used Trebizond silk which is a fat silk perle for these areas. The light pink is Duchesse Rose #511 and the deep rose is Gillyflower #429. Doesn't Trebizond have beautiful color names?

I stitched a scattering of cross stitches at the base of the fish's neck in both pink and rose to make bumps for her scales. I learned that the pink cross stitches didn't show up when I tent stitched around the XSes with my pale pink, so I put a tent stitch on top of the pale pink XSes with my Kreinik silver #4005. That looks nice and adds a bit of silver to go with the silver halo this pet guardian angel wears. The fins on her head and under her chin had skip tent in the rose Gillyflower color and I filled in the empty spaces with peach beads from SJ Designs. (#779) These beads are faceted and sparkle a great deal, making the fins look a bit wet. Oddly the peach of the beads looks good with the rose silk while light pink beads did not. More color magic I guess! You simply cannot be certain that a thread that looks great before you use it will look great when you put it in your design. The same thing is true for beads.

The fin is in all tent stitches.

I have a lot more background to do but I hope to treat myself by stitching her eye tonight.

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

Apologies Are In Order

I have apologies to make this morning. First of all, those of you who read Blog at the Yahoo 360 site are wondering why on earth a) there are two postings entitled "Musing On Wings While De-Icing;" b) why I haven't deleted one of them; and c) how I come up with these crazy titles. The answers are a) I don't know. I only posted once. b) Yahoo 360 won't let me delete the duplicate. It just says "URL not found" no matter which one I try to erase. I've made seven attempts to remove a duplicate but I guess we are going to just live with it. As for c) Crazy lady naturally equals crazy titles. It just happens. They pop into my head and if they aren't too wild, I type them.

Anyone whose short term memory hasn't been destroyed by stress due to their entire yard, driveway, porch and house being covered by 1/4 of solid ice, thus making them stay home for three days in a row with nothing to do but clean house (Thank you, Lord, for my stash) and attempt to remove said ice (fruitlessly--Mother Nature is bigger than me) will remember that yesterday I was excited by the pretty stitches Joan Thomasson used for her Barbara angel wings. They'll also remember that I was going to use leafy stitches in rows bordered by metallic for the wings on my Baroque Fish.

You'll notice that the wings above bear absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to Joan's fancy angel wings. I apologize.

What happened? Well, I discovered that pretty rows of leaves need to be on the horizontal. The fish has diagonal wings / so that my leaves were always having to be adjusted. If I'd really looked at Barbara angel on Joan Thomasson's website, I would have noticed that the wings were pointing down, not to the side. Since part of the charm of this stitch is its regularity is the regular rows, my squeezed and abbreviated and tilted this way and that leaf rows looked weird.

Kandy Merrac's angels deserve better, so I went looking for inspiration elsewhere. After all, I'm stitching all six of her angels for the ANG Auction, and although I want to use the fabulous clothing stitches, the halos and wings are all alike and I don't want to repeat myself six times. That way lies Stitching Burnout. My January 2009 Needle Pointers magazine from ANG has all the exhibit winners from the last Seminar, so I thought I'd look at the pretty pictures and maybe find something feathery looking for the fish. I found it on page 34 in the lovely purple Peony Ribbons piece designed by Betty Chen Louis and stitched by Lee McLeron. The ribbon on the far right uses a variation on Milanese stitch to great effect. (It might be Oriental Stitch but I'm not certain.) I don't have enough room on Baroque Fish's wings to have that much space between the diagonal rows of triangles but regular Milanese stitch worked nicely. I simply alternated colors from Splendor green #S880 and Splendor blue #S865 in each row. In person the blue rows are more prominent although this changes according to how you tilt the piece in the light. Carole Lake explains the Milanese stitch very well on her website.
http://www.carolelake.com/Stitches/Milanese.htm

The sleeve is in the green and the bodice in the blue. The collar and cuffs are lazy daisy stitches (in Tiara T109) over a base of three long stitches using my pale green #5 perle cotton that is on the front lower skirt of the gown. The Tiara frays easily so use short lengths of 8-10 inches max. The bows on the sleeve and at the neckline are my blue Splendor. The final touch is the long lines of my Kreink 1/8 inch ribbon in green that highlight the bodice. Actually, this looks wrong to me. I probably am going to remove these stitches and use the silver in the halo instead (Kreinik #4 braid in 4005) to make the scale right. The ribbon is too wide next to those small stitches. I also plan to add a bit more to the bow at the neckline as it isn't very prominent in the design. Another little ribbon end pointing out into the background should fix that.

The moral of it all is not to pick stitches when you are exhausted and stressed. You forget to study the stitch you like to see if it is suitable for the area you need to fill. This is why I'm not doing anything that takes any brain power until the ice storm is over and my routine restored.

My page view counter at Yahoo 360 just hit 694007 -- boy do I have a lot of apologies to make!

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

Musing on Wings While De-icing

Yesterday's snow was topped with ice overnight so we are still stuck at home. I did stitch a bit last night on my Baroque Fish Pet Guardian Angel but worked on the basketweave background, not exactly a riveting photo op!

But I've been trying to decide what stitch to use for the fish's head and wings. I think I have a stitch for the head (the original model is done in a fascinating stitch and I'm going to use parts of it but a different foundation) but the wings are still up in the air, so to speak.

So I did what I always do when I am wondering what to do with angel wings or with Santas--I visit the masters of that art. In this case, I'm talking about the website of Joan Thomasson, who is known for her angels. Once you arrive, click on Catalog on the left side of the page, then lick on Angels Series I. Barbara (Pink with Fur) is the 18th angel from the bottom. You'll see the stitched version. The plain painted canvas is above. She just happened to be on eBay recently (sold for $33 plus shipping, by the way.)

http://www.stitchinstuff.com/

I like the painted version of the wings with each feather section outlined in a contrasting color. I also like the sort of eyelet stitch Joan used. (I suspect it is actually buttonhole stitch with long legs that end in the same hole to make the eyelet.) So I'm wondering if I can use one of my metallics to stitch around feather shapes and fill them with eyelets in my green and blue Splendor silks for the Baroque Fish's wings.

I'm going to try this, possibly tonight. But now I need to get the ice off the front porch!

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

Now It's Snowing

I can't wait for spring! I feel much better but today I'm going to be stuck at home during a snowstorm. We have about half an inch now and it is coming down pretty well. 2-6 inches is expected today and tonight but the snow will turn to freezing rain later on.

I am glad to have a nice warm house with plenty of stash! Once I do some clean up this morning, I hope to stitch a little. For now you'll have to entertain yourself with the fun stitching other folks are doing.

First, Judy Harper is stitching tropical fish. This one is obviously a pearl fish. [loud giggles from CH] Seriously, note that Judy stitched around the pearls instead of removing them from the bare canvas and reattaching them later. I never would have thought to do that.
http://fairy-crafts.blogspot.com/2009/01/fish-is-finished.html

You will see other Squiggee designs in the set she is stitching on Judy's blog but there are more ornaments in the set. The rest are on Squiggee Herself's blog.
http://squiggeedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/01/something-is-just-plain-fishy.html


Next, let's visit Mary Corbet who is showcasing a goldwork and silk piece a friend of hers took as a class. She points out the interesting piece of gold kid too big for its leaf area and how scrunching it up made the veins. Again, I never would have thought to do that.
http://www.needlenthread.com/2009/01/readers-embroidery-goldwork-pansy.html

For just plain fun, let's visit Jocelyn in NZ where she has finished Twister in chocolate and mint colors. Let's say this all together--I never would have thought of that color combo but it looks great!
http://pinsneedles.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/twister-is-finished/

Cyn is stitching a little round ornament with an unusual border treatment. I would have done straight stitches curving around the circle's black rim but Pat Thode is much cleverer than me. All together now--"I never would have thought of that!"
http://cyns-stitches.blogspot.com/2009/01/heartstings-drum-nutcracker-january-24.html

Blogs are turning into a great source of ideas for our needlepoint, aren't they? Certainly no matter how creative one is, there is always something interesting to learn from our fellow stitchers.

Now, let's go shovel snow!

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

Out Sick

UPDATE: I corrected the Two Sisters' blog address. Sorry, I didn't notice I copied the wrong address yesterday. Shouldn't post when I am sleep deprived!

I've not done any stitching or finishing this weekend as I've been out sick with food poisoning from the yogurt treat I allow myself every Saturday. So I have done nothing but the basic chores all weekend and still don't feel that great. (Anyone think I can sneak a nap in before work?)

However, lots of other folks have been busy posting about their stitching on their blogs. If you take a little tour, you can see lots of fun things to treat your eyes and give you ideas of what to stitch in the coming year.

Kelly's just started her blog. She has this chair she puts pillows on and what pillows they are! I wonder if the Kelly Clark Santa she is stitching currently will end up on The Chair someday?
http://kellysorts.blogspot.com/

The Stitching Sisters Blog is a cooperative effort and because it showcases two stitchers' work, there is always something new and fun to see, from the Barbara Elmore mantelpiece to the Limoges box, by way of a purse and a box lid. And that's just on the first page! Work backwards to see other goodies that these two talented stitchers are working.
http://nystitchingsisters.blogspot.com/

Madonna, the Front Range Stitcher, has decided to start on her two whispering cat geishas canvas. This is from Patt and Lee, whose website is below Madonna's blog link. Patt and Lee are unusual designers in that they produce designs on both interlock and mono canvas and also as charts.
http://frontrangestitches.blogspot.com/

http://pattandleedesigns.com/

That's enough for now. You have links to explore and I really do have to lie down for a while.

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

New Counted Thread from AmyBear Designs

AmyBear has just released two new designs--a geometric piece and a new "stained glass" portrait. The geometric honors Nina Goerres. I had no idea she mentored so many stitchers and designers! Nina, we do miss you.
http://www.berks.com/amybear/

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

A New Things Post of Its Own

Two new things really deserve a posting of their own since I think they are really important. It can be overwhelming to read about more and more and more new things, many of which you might not really care about since you can't use them or they aren't your style. But if you don't look at any new items at all except these, you'll have hit the major high spots.

First of all, Melissa Shirley has pulled out all the stops and added dozens of new items. Some are extensions of new lines (the Valentine's Day antique postcards join Halloween and Christmas versions) and some are completely new (The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe and her kids made over in Halloween fashion) but they are all fascinating to view.

http://www.melissashirleydesigns.com/gallery/?bsn=1

Secondly, Needle in a Haystack has made their online thread cataolgue searchable. This is big news to those of us who don't have good shops nearby as this is the best place to see what new colors have been added to our favorite thread brands and to view new brands we've never seen. You can read about it here and click on the links to view the new colors available. It's a very useful tool for me and I hope you will find it useful also.

http://needlestack.typepad.com/whats_new/2009/01/searchable-thread-catalog-complete.html

Jane, promsing to stop posting any more today here in CH

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

More New Things

Lots of people are posting new items on their websites and blogs. This morning Ruth Schmuff has put up photos of a new stocking that is a pair with her lady almost hidden by wrapped presents. She's right-this is the perfect stocking set for the sophisticated couple in your life.
http://www.tistheseason.org/blog/2009/01/santa-stockin.html

Ruth is also showcasing her new scissors and laying tool cases.
http://www.tistheseason.org/blog/2009/01/needlework-accessory-cases.html

Barbara Bernstein has finished her needlepoint belt. FAB!
http://createneedlepoint.typepad.com/create_needlepoint/2009/01/finished-needlepoint-belt.html

Summer Truswell has finished stitching the new ANG Workshop by Mail piece. It's a Marnie Ritter sampler and beautiful. Summer has links to where to order the design and notes she wrote up as she worked it. The original model is silver, peach and coral, judging from the photo on the ANG website.
http://www.summerlouise.com/2009/01/marnie-ritters-scotch-ya.html

Liz Morrow has just finished a turquoise and terracotta version of the fabulous Susan Reed piece Imperial Topaz. The original was pumpkin, copper and royal purple but this one is just as lovely in Southwestern colors.
http://lizartblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/imperial-topaz.html

Finally, Janet Perry has posted a summary of the TNNA market on her website. There are no photos but there are some URLs to use in hunting for photos.
http://www.nuts-about-needlepoint.com/?p=1475

Have fun browsing!

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

The Needle Blended Robe

Recently Anne Stradal (ASB Designs) showed various ways of handling skies behind her lighthouse canvases on her blog.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/01/needle-blending-sky.html

She was stitching her newest lighthouse and decided to needle blend the sky above.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/01/painting-florida-sky.html

I was finishing up the bottom of the Baroque Fish's gown and looking at colors for the rest of this pet guardian angel. I have choosen a lovely pale green for the inset in her sleeve and the front of the lower hem and thought it might be lovely to use a green similar to the Caribbean blue I have used already. It struck me it might be nice to needle blend the colors so that the top half of the skirt slowly turned from blue to green. Then I could use the green for her blouse and sleeve and go back to the blue for the collar and cuffs. Mermaids are often a blend of blues and greens and I think of the Baroque Fish as a mermaid in disquise.

You can needle blend colors easily with flosses and I am using 4 plies of Splendor already, so I found a pretty green (Splendor S880) in the same brand of silk and started above the floral band with 3 plies of the green and one of blue. In traditional needle blending you have 4-6 plies and work with all the plies in color one, then add one ply of color two, and work the area adding a ply of one color and substracting a ply of the other until you move from solid color one to solid color two. I'm skipping some steps here as I don't have a great deal of space and each row is pretty broad. What you see in the photo above is 2 plies of blue with 2 of green. For the middle third of the upper skirt I will switch to three green plies and one blue ply, then the top near the waist will be all green. It is not going to be as subtle or natural as Anne's lighthouse sky, but what is subtle or natural about a fish in a long gown?

Jane, smiling and having fun in CH

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

If You Always Wanted to Be a Pilot Stitcher,

then Terry Dryden wants to talk to you.

Pilot stitchers are people who test drive class instructions. Normally teachers look for a guild willing to try out a class project in order to find problems and areas that need more explanation in their instructions. Terry talks about the process on her blog and is also recruiting pilot stitchers.
http://www.terrydryden.com/-blog/2009/1/23/writing-instruction-books.html

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

More New Stuff

New painted canvases from DJ Designs.
http://www.designsdj.com/preview2009.html

MAP Designs.
http://www.mapdesignsneedleworks.com/mapdesignhandpaintneedlepointnew.html

Raymond Crawford
http://www.raymondcrawford.com/designs/whatsnew/index.html

Kathy Schenkel
http://www.kathyschenkel.com/new/0.html

I'll post more as I find out about more new things on display.

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

Callaway Classes and TNNA's New Website

Gay Ann Rogers has kindly posted photos of some of the 2010 class projects at Calloway next January on her website. Click on More Callaway at the top of the page in the yellow navigation bars and look at three pages' worth of pictures.

http://www.gayannrogers.com/

TNNA has a new website to promote needle arts and tell us about all the new things available. It's a work in progress so not all the designer links are ready. Try Market Buzz for a slide show from last summer, but the real fun is trying out the shop/designer/blog/stitch finders on the right side of the page.

http://www.worldofneedlepoint.com/

Thanks for the treats, Gay Ann! And a big thank you to TNNA for bringing news to us the needlepoint comsumer.

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

Ray's Moppets on Tweed Canvas

Here are Leigh Designs' new 1920s Bathing Beauties on the new tweed canvas SharonG described for us yesterday.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp503x.html

Note that Leigh also has a new set of Dynasty ornaments, this time based on Swedish motifs and on a green canvas. Some are elegant (the various squashes) and some just fun (the stacks of farm animals)
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp826x.html

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

Twiggs

I meant to have this ready early this morning but the cat threw up and my morning went downhill from there.

This link shows beautiful finishing done by Twiggs of Savannah. Check out that chair! Those stairs! Those darling kids with their stockings and then the dog canvases! Lovely eye candy finished beautifully. As I am about to finish up the Three Women and a Peach Canvas, I really appreciate good finishing.

http://twiggsofsavannah.com/display.cfm/page/BragPage.html

Tonight I hope to have time to post the photo of ice on the Shenandoah River that I intended to illustrate this blog entry. The picture was taken last Saturday about a half mile from my house in Chilly Hollow.

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

America the Beautiful

Gay Ann Rogers filmed Tony Mineri leading the students at Calloway in singing America the Beautiful. Very appropriate for today, don't you think? Head to her website and look for the Callaway link, then click on Callaway 12.

http://www.gayannrogers.com/

Good luck to President Obama. Hope he doesn't need it.

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

More TNNA Reporting, This Time From SharonG

SharonG reports from TNNA about Brenda Hart, "She is working hard on book 4. It will be a 5x11 book. The size is easier to carry. I saw the cover and her draft stitches on her computer. It will be great. Brenda is very creative."

Personally, I can't wait for Brenda's new book. I have all of Brenda's stitch books and use them a great deal. In fact, I've just been browsing them looking for stitches for the Baroque Fish's face. I want to do scales maybe.

Sharon continues, "There is a new canvas from Zweigart. Tweed and it is stunning. The warp threads are white and the weft is black. Wait till you see it. Leigh painted some bathing beauties ala 20's on it. I think it would make a great handbag canvas because the unworked canvas would look so much like tweed fabric. "

The illustration for this blog entry is a custom canvas of Marilyn Monroe by Leigh, by the way.

About her own designs, SharonG says she is bringing back some of the lovely fountain pen canvases and that "My plan is to concentrate on designs that will retail for under $100. Shops tell me the consumer is looking for smaller canvases they can complete without a major commitment of time and $$. I know our shops appreciate everyone of you and others who love what we love...needleart."

If you aren't familiar with SharonG's fountain pen canvases, here are some of them. One lives in my stash, waiting for me to come up with wonderful threads and stitches for it.
http://www.sharong.com/catalog/pens/index.html

I'm very grateful for the reports from TNNA!

UPDATE: Colleen has updated her shop website with new TNNA items.

http://www.theneedleworks.com/new.html

And Amy Bunger talks about a new book from Patsy Snyder.

http://www.amybunger.com/catalog/item/6262613/6670444.htm

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

Our Intrepid Reporter Colleen

Needle Works of Austin's blog is posting photos of new items Collen the shop owner saw at the TNNA show and ordered. It's not always clear who designed what but given how tired the shop owners must be, I am surprised Colleen even managed to post news on her shop blog. But we are very glad she did!

http://theneedleworks.typepad.com/the_needle_works/2009/01/day-one-of-market-did-i-get-into-trouble.html

http://theneedleworks.typepad.com/the_needle_works/2009/01/cant-sleep.html

http://theneedleworks.typepad.com/the_needle_works/2009/01/more-marketmy-mind-has-been-racing-all-night.html

Keep up the good work!
Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Another Day, Another Halo

One of the things I thought I'd play with while stitching six different household pet guardian angels was the halos and the wings. I am going to attempt a different halo and a different wing treatment on each angel.

This may not be easy as I may run out of ideas and I do love how the Victorian Parakeet's wings turned out, but I am going to try. The silver (Kreinik #4005, my favorite silver!) halo was created by tent stitching an oval floating above the Baroque Fish's head, then stem stitching right on top of the tent stitches to give the halo a bit of Ooomph and dimension. Although you can't see the pretty silver shine, I think this is a very nice halo. (Although Pat's halo for the Georgian Rabbit angel on her Needle Art Nut blog is better. See the link and judge for yourself.)

http://needleartnut.blogspot.com/2009/01/tickled-purple.html

By the way, Three Women and a Peach is mostly assembled. The piece needs to spend a bit of time under heavy weights to both glue the additional magnets I put inside and flatten the quilt batting a bit. I will leave it alone a day for this to happen but hope to have everything together later this week. (I hope. Best laid plans and all that!)

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

Janet's Beaded Sheep

Remember the Evil Sheep, the large and menacing Sheep Wizard stitched by Dr. Janet Moyer? Janet just shared a photo of a much smaller sheep canvas, this time from Ewe and Eye and she's agreed to let me show you the photo and will telll us about stitching it. You can see the unstitched canvas on the Ewe and Eye website here. Just click on Birds and Animals, then go to page 5. Janet's sheep is in the middle of the top row.
http://www.eweandeyeandfriends.com

Many thanks to Ewe and Eye for permission to show off their sheep and even more thanks to Janet for telling us about The Sheep and The Bead Adventure."

Now, here is Janet:
****************************

The Problems and Saga of the Ears

I've stitched with a group of women, every Monday, at the Needlenook of La Jolla (NNLJ) for over ten years. We are very lucky to have all those threads to pick from and gorgeous, fun, or quirky canvases to buy. When my Shetland Sheepdogs began competitive sheep herding I started looking for sheep canvases. The first major sheep canvas I did was "The Evil Sheep," previously shown on Jane's blog. The owners of NNLJ manage to add to my sheep flock with some regularity. Hence, this piece from Ewe and Eye.

I usually stitch large pieces so this small canvas (5x5 inches) initially stumped me. So I asked the terrific needlepoint teacher Brenda Hart to look at it. She drew an eyelet stitch on a piece of paper. I tried it and loved it. Normally I don't start with a background stitch but this was wonderful! I used the light grey Splendor for the background, then the dark grey Splendor for the sheep's body. [NOTE: Janet listed her threads at the end of this message from her.]

I wanted the head to stick out from the body. Since I love to bead, beading was the choice. Next: ears. I blithely stitched one ear with beads and then filled in the inner ear with long stitches. I left the other ear to do later as I had to finish the sheep's body.

At this point everything looked, well, dull is the word. Aha, I went to my stash and found the star sequins. Perfect! No more dull. I placed them selectively on the background. They are a surprise to anyone viewing the canvas as they blend in so well that one does not see them until the canvas is moved slightly and the sequin catches the light. All of them may not show up in the picture.

I finished the body and most of the circles. Bijoux was backstitched on top of the T stitch body. So far, so good. The last circles were completed after the ears were finished.

Now it was time to finish the other ear. I COULDN'T FIND THE BEADS I'd used on the other ear. I went through my stash, asked my stitching friends if anyone had given me the steely grey beads. No luck. I contacted Mill Hill Beads, checked out all of Sundance Beads, went to Michael's store and checked their beads. NO LUCK.

I gave up and stitched the remaining ear, first in a matte black (no, too dense, too black). Then I tried shiny black (still too black) and decided I would have to make do with them. So I finished the ear and then removed the beads from the first ear. They looked like a translucent grey so back I went to all the bead sources. NO LUCK. I showed them to Pam Carnot, a stitching friend, and she smiled at me and said they were light green, not grey. When I stitched them onto the canvas I used a black beading thread which Pam said turned them to a hematite color!! Now you all know my secret: I am color weak (not color blind). That's one of the reasons I stitch with others. Good thing, hmmm? This was interesting to me, though: I have since ordered clear beads from Sundance Beads and I am going to experiment with different colored bead threads and see what I get. You might want to try it too.

The lawn/hill was done in basketweave to provide some relief to the eyes from all the texture of the background and the sheep. I stitched the leaves in a basketweave stitch but turned the leaves 90 degrees to do it, to add some subtle textural change. Then I stitched a skeletonized leaf stitch on top for a tiny bit of dimension but keeping it subtle for the POW of the overdyed pink thread, which I simply coiled and couched to hold it place. A double French knot was stitched in the center.

Brenda's great background stitch got me started. The rest of the stitches and any mistakes are mine. Now, on to the next sheep….

signing off in La La Land,

Janet

Materials and stitches for the Grey Sheep

Background: Splendor 976 (light grey); Stitch suggested by Brenda Hart, a type of eyelet.
Star sequins added to the background.

Sheep body: Splendor 967 (dark grey). Stitch used: the T stitch.

Face: Sundance beads, #282 (kind of a peachy color), size 14 Sundance Beads
Eyes: Sundance beads #457A (a bronze color), size 14 Sundance Beads
Ears: Sundance beads #306, size 14. Sundance Beads. Backstitched and used the doubled safety railroad split thread to anchor the beads. I filled in the inner ears with dark grey long stitches in inner ear. As we discussed the 306 beads are a light green. I put them on the canvas with black beading thread which turned the color to Hematite. Perfect for the ears!!

Circles on body and legs: Bioux # 484 Obsidian (has gold in it) backstitch on body. Single vertical tent stitch on legs, one under each other, etc.

Green lawn: Anchor floss 267; basket weave
Flower: Threadworkx Overdye floss, pink # 1101. Just wrapped floss in a circle then couched it with a single ply of the pink. Used a dab of Japanese glue to hold the ends down.
Green leaves: Anchor floss #254. Basket weave stitch. Then on top of basket weave I did a skeleton leaf stitch to give appearance of texture, without the weight."
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By the way, anyone who wants to see Evil Sheep can visit the Yahoo 360 blog and then look in the Tag Cloud on the left side of the page for the keywords Evil-Sheep. Click on that and you'll see the first sheep in Janet's herd.

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

New and Shiny!

Ruth Schmuff's shop newsletter just arrived with links to a page full of new designs she is offering this year. If you live in the Baltimore area, you know Ruth as the owner of Bedecked and Beaddazzled north of downtown. If you don't, you know Ruth as the designer for Tis the Season.

Whichever hat Ruth happens to be wearing, I know it is pink and mint and purple and sparkles!

Don't believe me? Check out her newest designs, many of which are from Ruth's company and many of which are from new, fun designers like Eye Candy. (The canvas above is called "Cat Served" while "Cat and Mouse" adorns the Yahoo 360 blog.)
http://www.bedeckedandbeadazzled.com/whatsNew.php

As the biggest TNNA trade show of the year has just opened in San Diego, I hope Ruth's new things are just the first in many postings about the goodies that will arrive in our favorite shops over the next 2-3 months.

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

Stitching Skies, Pugs and Fancy Stitches (with Common Threads)

The tips from professional needlepointers on their blogs keep coming--in alphabetical order we have:

ABS Designs' Anne Stradal explains how she stitches skies with needle blended colors and simple stitches.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/01/needle-blending-sky.html

Gail Hendrix of Squiggee Designs demonstrates that you can do wonderful things on 10 count as well as 18 count NP canvas. Folks with bad vision all over the world rejoice!
http://squiggeedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/01/pug-anyone.html

This is after Gail shows us how to use commonly available threads to great effect on her newest canvas, an iris circle.
http://squiggeedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/01/squiggee-is-stitchingthe-moon-is-green.html

Judy Harper also discusses this topic in her dissertation on cotton threads.
http://fairy-crafts.blogspot.com/2009/01/tutorial-for-cotton-thread-bargello-egg.html

Finally Orna Willis has added an explanation of Jessicas with a great diagram to her website's collection of instructional PDFs. I found out about this on her blog that had the link to here--
http://www.ornadesign.com/how-to

The above proves once again that stitchers are wonderfully sharing folks!

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

January 2009 Chilly Hollow Newsletter Article

Baby, it's COLD outside! I don't know about you, but this is the time of year I park myself in front of football on the tv and stitch my brains out.

If you want to read a good book instead, how about this new South African book that shows how to enhance Cicely Mary Barker's little flower drawings into ribbon embroidery and stumpwork?n Click on the Periwinkle Fairy at the bottom of the page to see how one design turned out. After you get the larger image, click on the magnifying glass icon and then move your mouse around to see details.
http://www.dicraft.co.za/books.php#ff

Another fabulous book from overseas is Trish Burr's long-and-short stitched flowers from Pierre Joseph Redoute's botantical watercolors. Beautiful!
http://www.trishburr.co.za/books.htm

If any of this inspires you to stitch and you need stitch ideas, a lot of bloggers are posting diagrams and closeup photos of stitches they are using. Let's start with the designer Barbara Bergsten's blog. She is doing another sampler with explicit instructions and charts for each stitch. She even tells you the order she stitched a complicate stitch in and gives you tips on the use of color.
http://createneedlepoint.typepad.com/

Summer Louise Truswell, famous for her finishing skills, is now doing a Stitch A Week for us, with the latest being cross stitches. There's a bonus if you keep reading earlier blog postings--she is also showing what she is stitching on a large Amanda Lawford stand up Santa. The design is fabulous! Use the links under Previous Posts to find earlier Stitches of the Week and also see more of the Royal Santa and some of her finishing.
http://www.summerlouise.com/blogger.html

The final blogger with fun stitches and projects to enjoy and learn from is Sue Dulle of SD Designs. She shares her snowman collection and the stitches she is using for her latest addition to the group (look for the January 4 blog entry). I especially love the little glimpses into her house and the antiques she enjoys and I'm definitely going to use some of her lovely snowman stitches.
http://sudukc.wordpress.com/

Stay warm, stitch a lot and be inspired by the great books and stitchers we have visited today.

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

Sackboy Knitting Instructions from The Sun

I am not a knitter. No time and no one here to help me over the rough spots, but I am tempted by these instructions to attempt to knit myself a Sackboy. You may remember my Christmas Day ramblings about the video game Little Big Planet which features this little knitted character and the ability to create your own environments. Now the British paper The Sun has provided a link to a PDF file with the instructions by Alan Dart which were originally in the January 2009 issue of Simply Knitting magazine.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gizmo/article2056598.ece

So get busy knitting Sackboys (or Sackgirls) for your gamer friends and relatives!

By the way, the darling Sackboy above was knit by I Like Lemons who is currently knitting olives. Here's the blog link.

http://i-like-lemons.blogspot.com/

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

Anne is Ready for Tea Now

Anne Stradal (she's the owner of ABS Designs) has finished her vacation stitching another designer's Japanese portrait and is ready to celebrate. Here's the blog entry describing her final touches to Nippon Textures.

http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/01/let-tea-ceremony-begin.html

The above is the companion piece to the Squiggee Three Women and a Peach which I just finished (and need to get on that album cover). It is really worth a visit to Anne's blog to read how she stitched this piece. It is similar in some ways to my stitching of Three Women and very different in other ways. Click on the photo to enlarge it and you'll see why I have been asking Anne to do stitch guides for her pieces for years. (Ok, the truth was I've begged and begged, especially for the fabulous Door canvases you can see on her website by finding the link on the left top part of her blog.)

Lovely collaboration, Anne and Gail!

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

English Gentleman with Plum Pudding

This charming Englishman with his pipe, his umbrella and of course his plum pudding is for sale on the Buy It Now portion of eBay for $45 plus shipping. The seller has a lot of the Dede Santas from various countries, so click on View Seller's Other Items to see other nationalities.

http://tinyurl.com/79b5eq

Robin, this one's for you!

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

Introducing the Baroque Fish UPDATED

The next Household Pet Guardian Angel from Kandy Merric's inventive mind is the Baroque Fish. You can see the original model over on the right side of the page.

The drawing is faint as I don't want the color to show through my threads but you get the general idea. This angel has a beautiful stitch for its skirt that is partly underway. I am using 4 plies of Splendor silk in a dark turquoise blue #S865 for the skirt.

The trim is lovely and much simpler to stitch than the Victorian Parakeet's. I am using green 008 Kreinik 1/16" ribbon and a doubled strand of Tiara #T109 which is a blend of blue and green and gold to stitch the pattern. The front panel of her skirt is DMC #5 cotton perle in a light blue #959. That same thread is used on the sleeve which I have started. If you look at the model, you'll see the sleeve is slashed and an inner, contrasting color shows through. That's what I am stitching now.

Speaking of angels, are you familiar with the needle minder magnets from Kelmscott Designs? Their newest magnets are alphabet angels. The best photos I found of all the angels are here, although they are available at many U.S. shops. Many thanks to Nordic Needle, whose shop e-newsletter mentioned these!
https://www.sewandso.co.uk/ran2702-0.html

Finally, this week is the beginning of the needle retreat at Callaway Gardens. Gay Ann Rogers teaches there and is starting to post photos on her website. Ever wondered what the editor of NP Now looks like? Who actually runs the show? Etc.? You can browse here and see new photos almost every day of the two session's fun.
http://www.gayannrogers.com/

UPDATE: I've changed the URL to GAR's website to her home page. Find the Callaway link for there as the actual address changes when she updates with more pictures. The third set of photos is a slide show of the beautiful items in Betty Chen Louis' classroom. If you are a fan of her work, you are going to love this!

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

The Victorian Parakeet, Halo and All

Last night I put the finishing touches on my version of Kandace Merric's Victorian Parakeet. I backstitched a bit around the winged hands and the parakeet's head with my grey Medici, then added a halo using the three metallics I have already used in this project--Caron's orange Snow, the Kreinik purple with orange highlights that inspired the color scheme, and a bit of dark purple Accentuate #140.

I'd already used the Accentuate on the purple skirt area but not mentioned it to you. If you look back at earlier photos of the Victorian Parakeet, the purple skit seemed to have bare canvas showing through the areas where the stepped stitch used in most of this design met. The orange areas, that use the same stitch oriented in a different direction, didn't have this bare spot. I'm not sure why this appeared in the vertical stitch orientation and not in the horizontal. Usually it's upright stitches where you don't have full coverage. You can take a length of #8 perle cotton and stitch a diagonal sittch on 18 count NP canvas and it'll cover ok, but that same thread on the same count canvas in a stitch that is vertical may not cover. That's something you take into account when you switch threads called for in a stitch guide. You might have to use a more plies for the upright stitches if the substitute thread is skinnier than the original. Play around with this on your scrap canvas using a Mosaic stitch and a bargello stitch and you'll see what I mean.

That doesn't seem to have happened here, but I've always heard that very dark colors make thread slightly thinner. My purple silk is Soie d'Alger and I think the orange silk is also. Could it be the number of times the purple silk had to go through the chemicals of the dye bath to achieve that rich royal purple made the plies a bit thinner than the orange silk? May be. If I'd noticed ahead of time I could have used 5 plies of silk in the purple areas instead of 4, but I didn't.

That's where the purple Accentuate came in--I back stitched with a doubled strand of it right over the bare areas. If you squint at the photo you'll see the purple metallic in the skirt.

I've really enjoyed stitching Kandace Merric's Victorian Parakeet. For some reason, I'm the only person who volunteered to stitch a parakeet so I wanted her to be extra special, with deep, rich colors and a slightly different halo to make her stand out from the rest as much as possible. I hope I suceeded! This was a challenging stitch --that braid trim was hard to do, I had trouble at first getting the right look to the parakeet's wings and head, those durn bare spots in the skirt--but I think I overcame the challenges and I don't always want to stitch an easy piece. I like challenge with my NP, thank you very much!

Kandace Merric delivers with fascinating designs and interesting stitches, and I have had a very good time with the Medieval Cat and now the Victorian Parakeet in the Household Pet Guardian Angel series.

Next up--the Baroque Fish!


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

Beatrice, The Renaissance Rat Pet Guardian Angel

The beauty above is Beatrice, Joanne's household pet guardian angel. She's a rat from the Renaissance, and one of the eleven household pet guardian angels destined for the ANG Auction which I'm not stitching.

Here's Joanne to tell you in her own words how Beatrice came to be stitched.

"When Jane asked me what ornament I wanted to stitch after I volunteered, I said, I don't care, you choose. Then I saw the pictures she sent me and I said, definitely the RAT, I love the rat! I loved her florentine dress, both the colors and the stitch, and since I was in Florence last year, I felt she was calling to me. I named her Beatrice in honor of Dante's Beatrice and in memory of my trip.

I didn't change much, if anything, of the original instructions except changing the cotton threads for silk. Since I liked the colors, I pulled the DMC colors and matched them in a combination of Needlepoint Inc and Splendor. The only thing I'm sorry about is that the beautiful Gloriana perle I chose didn't cover the canvas well, so I stuck with floss. Her wings are floche with a little bit of blending filament, her face is Burmilana, and her halo is pearl purl with some tambour thread accents. Since Jane had asked for a DMC ecru background to match the other angels, that's what I used.

And now we wait for the finishing instructions - Jane swears I can do it!"

Of course you can, Joanne. Once I finish my parakeet, Pat finishes her rabbit and Margaret finishes her dog, we'll start finishing. I'm going to rough out instructions, Pat (who is a marvelous finisher) will look over them, then we'll all jump in and finish our angels. I'll post the instructions we used here and the other stitchers will finish their angels so that we have a similar-looking set to auction off to one lucky bidder at the ANG Auction during the Milwaukee Seminar this fall.



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

Elizabethean Embroidery in All Its Glory

The painting on the left is Mary, Queen of Scots, the spiritual ancestor of needlepointers today. She's five years old in the portrait, which comes from the Mary, Queen of Scots website.
http://www.maryqueenofscotland.co.uk/

I've been following with great interest the development of Elmsley Rose's blog. ER is stitching a sampler of Elizabethean stitches and gives source material and nice photos of her sampler as it develops. I am no historical reproduction stitcher, but I can certainly admire what she is doing. It's fascinating to watch, especially since if Queen Mary herself showed up to read ER's blog, she'd recognize the stitching and feel right at home.
http://elmsleyrose.blogspot.com/

If you get addicted to period stitching, you'll want to follow Plimoth Plantation's stitching of an Elizabethean jacket. These are the folks who commissioned the new Gilt Sylke Twist thread which is now available for those special touches on your needlework.
http://www.plimoth.org/embroidery-blog/

Jane Zimmerman's new website has been fun to watch also. She doesn't just do geometric samplers in needlepoint, she has written a great many articles on stitching throughout history and a lot of them are appearing on her website.
http://www.janezimmerman.com/

If you want to take a fascinating class on Elizabethean stitching, you can't go wrong by having Carole Lake visit your guild. Check these out. The first link is a one-day class, the second four full days of fun and history.
http://www.carolelake.com/TeachingPieces/Thistle.htm
http://www.carolelake.com/TeachingPieces/MaryQueen.htm

Those who don't know their own history are doomed to miss out on a lot!

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

Finished Play Pretties to Admire UPDATED

Last night saw a rather tired Jane basketweaving a little bit. My progress isn't worth showing so how about I distract you with some fabulous finished pieces from other places? After all, if you don't like animals or Asian-themed pieces, you have been a bit disappointed here lately!

First, let's head to Michele Herron's blog to see her last four pieces, all shoe shaped! Two are Western boot canvases and two are Christmas stockings. All four are wonderful to see. Michele owns The Bristly Thistle in Michigan. You probably remember her Halloween canvas with the little kids marching in a row on their way to trick or treat. She calls her blog Neeldepoint Tips and Tricks and tells you what threads and stitches she chose for these designs plus she has a nice little blog entry about how to chart names for stocking tops. I love her blog!

http://bristlythistle.blogspot.com/

Next, how about we go see Ruth Schmuff? Ruth also owns a shop right outside of Baltimore called Bedecked and Beadazzled and is a NP designer, too. Her blog is full of pieces she's stitched for the shop or for classes. You may remember the pastel pink Melissa Shirley Santa she was stitching. It is covered in crystals, fur and fancy stitches. My kind of Santa! It is back from the finisher's and it is lovely.

http://www.tistheseason.org/blog/ruthsBlog.html

You should browse a bit. Ruth has photos of the many ways to finish the shop's new snowman club designs (that helped me decide to put my Squiggee canvas on a photo album cover) and shows off a gorgeous pillow as an example of how finishing really "makes" a stitched piece. Do not forget to go to the second page to see her cat portrait, complete with whiskers! To navigate her blog, click on the links under Recently on the right side of the page or open a month in the Archives and start reading there. Ruth loves finishing and embellishing painted canvases and posts great photos of her work to inspire us.

Finally, for something completely different, let's head to Edy's blog. Edy is sampler-mad! She has two blogs, a personal one, and a blog that collects photos of finished cross stitch samplers with detail like the designer name, the fabric count of the ground fabric, etc. If you enjoy samplers, you will want to bookmark and visit Edy's collection and perhaps contribute photos of your own work there.

http://galleryofsamplers.blogspot.com/

Edy's sampler blog is a great place to get framing ideas, find a designer whose style you like, or just get ideas for the next chart to add to your collection. Great idea, Edy!

UPDATE: Edy tells me the sampler collection blog isn't hers (although she's contributed to it), just her personal website that talks about her samplers and of course her ten darling grandkids under the age of eleven. Way to go, Edy! What fun! Here is Edy's personal blog.
http://grandmaelf.blogspot.com/

Now let's return to our regularly scheduled programming--I basketweave while we all complain about the winter weather!

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

More Pet Guardian Angels

There are a bunch of folks (I count eleven other angels underway plus my six) stitching Kandace Merric's household pet guardian angel series. The set will be auctioned off by ANG at the Milwaukee Seminar next fall. I know not everyone will get to ANG's Seminar but you can see some of the other angels underway on various blogs.

Margaret is stitching the Tudor Dog and it is lovely! That's it in the picture above. Head to her blog and go back a page to see the beginning of her dog, then read forwards to watch it appear like magic.
http://cranecottage.com/stitchingblog/

Pat is stitching the Georgian Rabbit and it is just as lovely! She isn't as far along as Margaret is, and I can't wait to see more of the rabbit's chic robes.
http://needleartnut.blogspot.com/

Once Margaret and Pat and I all have finished angels, we are going to make them up as ornaments ourselves. Stay tuned for that once I finish my Victorian Parakeet and have the finishing done on the Squiggee Three Women and a Peach piece.

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

Buttons and Necklace But No Halo

The Victorian parakeet got more basketweave background last night, plus beads for buttons on her jacket front and a bead necklace. The necklace chain is the Kreinik metallic that inspired the colors of her clothing. In the original Kandace Merric chose colors typical of the Victorian period. The original parakeet wore a pink gown with pink and green braided trim.

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

The Liz Secret Is Out

If you like original pieces, especially bargello patterns, you need to go visit Liz Morrow's blog. I heard about it from Judy Harper and Judy hit the nail on the head--this is a Must See!

If you subscribe to Needlepoint Now, the latest issue starts an introduction to bargello by Liz using a montage of her pieces on the cover. Here's the latest blog entry, which shows off an original design she created for a friend which is pictured above. (I need to get on Liz's friend list, this is magnificent!)

http://lizartblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/vases.html

The bargello pieces Liz has done are hidden in her photo album. Look on the right side of her blog for the slide show of her work which is titled Liz's Bargello. Click on any photo to see larger photos of everything. The page will change to her photo album. Click on slideshow and remember to close your mouth when it drops open with surprise.

Thanks for the tip, Judy! And special thanks to Liz for sharing your needlepoint.

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

Introducing Kandy Merric's Victorian Parakeet Pet Guardian Angel

Plenty of times during the holidays I've sat down and stitched a little on my second pet guardian angel for the ANG Auction in Milwaukee next fall. I just haven't talked about it with all the other things we've all had going on.

But since the Victorian Parakeet is almost done, how about a picture?

I have to say, this has been a really interesting piece to stitch. See the braided trim on her sleeves, down the front of her jacket and at the bottom of her apron and long dress? That was a real pain to do! I finally mastered the braid stitch in a straight line, only to have to learn to do a similar braid on a slant. It was difficult and fascinating to interweave the purples and peaches to get a smooth and lovely touch for this pet guardian angel.

Now look at the sleeve and jacket bodice and the three sections of the back of her skirt and bustle. That is all the same stitch, oriented differently. The purple skirt areas use the same stitch as well. I found it fascinating to see how slanting the stitch various ways gave dimention to the various areas of the parakeet's clothing.

I used an unusual color mix for me based on a Kreinik metallic that mixes purple and orange. I saw this thread on Michele Herron's blog when she was working on the darling Tapestry Tent/Susan Roberts Halloween trick or treaters canvas. The little red haired girl in the witch costume was wearing Kreinik 5007 (a purple with hints of orange) mixed with a lavender Kreinik metallic.

http://bristlythistle.blogspot.com/2008/11/cute-little-witch-with-red-hair.html

I was fascinated by 5007 and picked up a spool. Since I found a royal purple Soie d'Alger (#1345) and a peach/orange silk that I think is also Soie d'Alger in my stash, I only needed one more metallic to outfit the parakeet in purples and oranges. I choose Caron's Snow in Fire Orange #13, which is pumpkin and gold. These aren't "my" colors but I'm very happy with the choices which make the Victorian parakeet look elegant, not like an escapee from Halloween.

The last bit of the parakeet was its wings, wing-tip hands, and the head. (Remember, all the pet guardian angels have the same tent-stitched background in Ecru DMC perle cotton.) These are in Medici using Blanc (white) and 8380 (a soft grey with undertones of pink). The wings turned out beautifully once I outlined each feather and overstitched the tips with grey. All white wings blended into the ecru background without the grey outlines.

I stitched the head and wing tip hands in basketweave with one strand of my Blanc Medici. That was a mistake. The blue outlines where the shading was to go showed too much as the white thread didn't cover. So I went back over the area around the eye (that's a Mill Hill Magnifica bead in color 10120 held on by a big fat French knot using my purple Soie d'Alger) with \ stitches to make the face near the beak and eye cross stitches. That helped but still didn't cover. What to do?!?!?! Ok, let's try a second layer of basketweave on top of the rest of the head. Still didn't cover. Ok, let's put a third layer on top, this time Interlocking Goblein. And it worked! I have a feathery look to the bird's head. I should mention I back stitched the grey lines showing feather marks on top of the first two layers on one strand of Medici and the Interlocking Goblein went on top of the cross stitches, the basketweave and the back stitching. Since I used all white for the Interlocking Goblein, it softened the look and made it all quite feathery. Which goes to show ripping out isn't always the best way to hide mistakes!

I need to finish the background and then add buttons and a broach to the outfit and give our angel a halo. So I have a way to go.

Hopefully today I'll get some of the fnishing done on my Squiggee Three Women piece since I'm stuck at home due to an ice storm. Everybody stay safe and hope the power stays on!

Whoops! Almost forgot the beak! That's tent stitches in a third metallic, plain old Kreinik #273 copper in tent stitches topped with a few free-hand slanted \ stitches for the top of the beak where parakeets have a roughened area.
Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Quick! Email Betsy!

Betsy Swartwood, the ANG Auction Chairman for the Milwaukee Seminar next fall, has posted a message on the ANG email list that more items are available to stitch for the Auction.

Betsy told folks to look at the current list of items on the ANG website, plus she has two small Shay Pendray kits available. All these are on a first come-first served basis except for the canvases marked LP as these are sets that the Life Patrons of ANG stitch as a group. Here's the list.

http://www.needlepoint.org/Auction/2008/canvas.php

The way this works is you email Betsy the number of the canvas and she sends it to you. You stitch it with the threads you supply (some canvases have a stitch guide, some don't) and return it to her by the deadline (usually March or May, negotiate with Betsy on this point) and she has it finished into something that's auctioned off. Occasionally items are saved for the following year's auction, especially if they are part of a set that isn't finished yet.

Betsy's email address is auction@needlepoint.org so check the list and give her a call. There are lots of great items waiting for you to act....

I'm stitching Kandace Merric's pet guardian angel set. More on that once I finish making up my Squiggee canvas.


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

Needlepoint Sandwich Ingredients

I can tell I thoroughly confused some of you when I talked about how I was going to put Three Women and a Peach on the photo album cover. The flap (the album is open with the flap pulled away from the cover--the cover and flap both have magnets in them so they stick together) is pulled back and the album open with the NP canvas, the bead on its linen DMC string and the trim I found yesterday are all visible.

I've not done anything more on assembling the photo album as I was still hunting trim. I am lucky in that there are two large fabric shops and a crafts emporium that carries sewing supplies near me. It just takes time to visit them all. Yesterday I found brown braid that'll be perfect. It's on a piece of tape. This is pillow trim and the tape is so you can sandwich the trim tape between two pieces of fabric and easily sew up a pillow. I am not sure if I'll cut the tape off and hand sew the brown braid on or leave it in place. Haven't decided what's easier yet.

The album flap you see on the right will be sandwiched between my two pieces of finishing foam. When the flap is open so you can flip through the album pages, you'll see the brocade side of the sandwich. When the flap is closed, you'll see the NP because the magnetized flap itself will be sandwiched between the back and front of the ornament.

I've just typed "sandwich" three times. I must be hungry!

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

New Monthly NP Clubs

It's January 2009 and you know what that means--new needlepoint clubs! I've started making a list. Let me know about other clubs and I'll post about them later.

The Seasonal Doors (spring, summer, Halloween and Christmas doors) from Ridgewood NP aren't on their website yet.
http://www.ridgewoodneedlepoint.com/

The snowmen from Bedecked and Beadazzled (Meet the Flakes-lol) are designed by Ruth Schmuff with stitch guides by Cynthia Thomas. There's a photo on Ruth's blog and another on the Clubs page of her shop website. The blog photo is slightly larger in my opinion, but you'll want to go to the website to sign up for this club which starts in March.
http://www.tistheseason.org/blog/2008/12/meet-flakes.html

http://www.bedeckedandbeadazzled.com/products.php?catid=18&firstcid=3


Needles and Threads of Ruxton (that's Maryland near Baltimore) is doing 12 rollup Christmas Gnomes, silly little men with big personalities and cone shaped hats. Each gnome canvas has three triangles on the top edge that fold into the pointed cone hat in finishing. The canvases are by Savannah Designs and there will be stitch guides, too. Not on their website yet (first link below) but I found photos on the designer's website (2nd link). The photo above is Mr. Spock from the set. He made me laugh! (Do Vulcans eat peppermint sticks?)
http://www.needlesandthreadsofruxton.com/canvas.php

http://twiggsofsavannah.com/display.cfm/page/Products/SubCat/75.html

By the way, Twiggs of Savannah has a Nativity rollup monthly club as well as the gnomes.
http://twiggsofsavannah.com/display.cfm/page/CanvasOfTheMonth.html


Needle House is doing 12 ornate "blown glass" ornaments that come with a sttich guide, the threads, beads and Swarovski Crystals. Not on their barebones website so you'll need to call.
http://www.theneedlehouse.com/jm/

The French Knot is doing a small tree skirt with a round Bethlehem scene and 12 matching ornaments, all round and all also small (less than 3 inches in diameter).
http://www.thefrenchknot.com/models/rw%20mini%20nativity%20orn.html

They also are reviving their ornament of the month series. These are small designs, usually with a Christmas and/or Texas theme. If you've been looking for a Santa in Buckskins, this is the place!
http://www.thefrenchknot.com/models/orn_month.html

NN of LJ is starting a Maggie club featuring 13 Frank Bielec designs. Think modern, colorful and high impact! No information on the website yet so call for more information.
http://www.needlenook.com/

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

Why I'll Never Be a Professional Finisher, Part Two

Here you see the second piece of finishing foam, covered with my brocade fabric. Also in the photo is my fake ivory Buddha bead that I'll use to pull open the magnetic flap of the photo album which will be covered by my round piece of needlepoint. I cut a length of brown DMC linen thread, made a loop and stuck the loop through the bead with the loose ends coming out of the bottom. I then tied several knots to hold the bead and fringed the ends which weren't plied to begin with. I like the rough look of the linen with my brown suede photo album and the NP canvas itself.

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

Why I'll Never Be a Professional Finisher, Part One

This photo is the back side of Three Women and a Peach, trimmed to about an inch of bare canvas, and turned under over my piece of finishing foam. You can see I've pleated the bare canvas in places as I folded it back, then stitched the pleats to hold them. I started lacing a bit but that will need to wait until I slip the photo album's magnetic flap into the slot cut out of the finishing foam. Once I do that, I'll know how tightly to lace the canvas from top to bottom. I probably won't lace side to side because of the flap. I'll still need to remove the NP from the flap while I attach the back side piece of finishing foam that is covered with my brocade.

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

Amy News and Views

Another Amy Bunger newsletter is on her website, ready for download. This is a PDF file, so when you click on the January 2009 link under E-Newsletters, the file will open if you have the Acrobat software that opens PDFs on your computer. If you don't have Adobe's Acrobat, not to worry. There's a link on the E-Newsletter page to where you can download it for free.
http://www.amybunger.com/

This month's newsletter showcases some fabulous stitching Amy and her students have done, tells you there is going to be a Brenda Stofft trunk show this spring (please go see that and report back if you can--I love Brenda's designs!), there are photos of Tony Minieri's Room with a View that'll be taught at Amy's shop and his Journey to Satchadananda, stitched by someon in last year's Tony class, and more! Don't forget that every newsletter has a free stitch charted in it. This time there's a snowflake pattern, which is sadly too appropriate for many of us!

The last bit of newsletter news is the best--Amy's working on a new DVD. This time it's Barely There, all about those stitches that don't completely cover a canvas. This will be out at the trade show in 2-3 weeks and I'm told by Webmaster Robin that there will be a YouTube snippet from this DVD available fairly soon. If you've not seen the YouTube video of Amy taken from Mop Tops and Buzz Cuts (how to stitch hair and beards) do visit it here.
http://www.amybunger.com/amys_on_youtube.html

Don't forget to browse the website and check out the sale items in Amy's Attic. There are lots of new items, including a brand new photo of the finished Baby Jesus from the Kelly Clark Nativity Set that Amy's doing as a home study class this year. Himself is above--isn't that fabulous?!

There are four photos from the set available on Amy's website now (under Home Study). Use Next in the upper right just above the first picture to see them all. Amy's used 12 of the 17 items in the set. (There's a one piece Holy Family design that you can use instead of the three separate pieces or omit altogether.)
http://www.amybunger.com/albums/album_image/6366238/3808849.htm

Here is the whole set on Kelly Clark's website. I just love Nativity sets, especially the Wise Men!
http://www.kellyclarkneedlepoint.com/nativity

Thanks, Amy. I really enjoy your monthly newsletters.
Jane/Chilly Hollow

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

Nippon Textures is Underway!

Anne Stradal has started blog-stitching the companion piece to Three Women and a Peach. This design is called Nippon Textures and is also from Squiggee. It is a 7 inch diameter circle on 18 count, which is the same size and canvas count as the piece I just finished stitching.

You can follow along by reading Anne's blog, The Cape Stitcher.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-year-new-project.html

Anne's style is much more traditional than mine. She is likely to use much more tent stitch and to use different threads than I did, so this is going to be fun!

We can always learn from each other, so I hope to get lots of ideas from Anne's stitching.

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

Supplies Needed for Three Women...

Thanks to a remark from Madonna, I know how I will finish my Squiggee design of Three Women and a Peach. It is going to be put on the cover of a photo album.

Above you see some of my supplies for finishing this piece--the photo album (covered in brown suede and about an inch taller and 2 inches wider than my 7 inch round canvas), my paper color copy of the canvas before I started stitching it, and a piece of tan finishing foam cut to a 7 inch circle. I used brown finishing foam to put under my NP because the background stitch is an open one that doesn't hide the underlying brown canvas. I don't want someone noticing the backing inside the NP through those holes!

You have noticed that the finishing foam has a piece cut out of the middle. That's because the album is held together with a magnetic flap. You pull the flap away from the magnet to open the album. I put my paper pattern under the flap in various positions and when I was happy with one, I traced around the flap and then cut out the section. I used the paper pattern before it was cut to cut two pieces of finishing foam and then used the paper pattern after it was cut away to trim the same sized slot from one piece of finishing foam. What you don't see in the photo is my second round disk of finishing foam which is currently under a heavy book to help the brocade fabric that covers one side dry. I just glued the fabric on so that item missed the photo shoot.

I plan to layer the two pieces of finishing foam, one covered in fabric, in this order from the bottom up: finishing foam circle with the back covered in brocade facing to the bottom of the layers, magnetic flap, brown finishing foam with the slot cut out that will fit right around the magnetic flap, and then finally the NP canvas itself on top. I don't think I'll put quilt batting inside this piece, but I may change my mind about that. I will need something to pull to open the flap as I won't want folks pulling up on the needlepoint to open the album. I happen to have a carved fake ivory bead shaped like an oval Buddha that I can use as a pull.

The reason that I just happened to have the right bead is that I do a lot of stitching with Asian themes. I keep my eyes open wherever I go and pick up items that look good with this style. I found the bead in the local bead shop near where I work last spring and bought it, knowing that eventually it would come in handy. You can do this sort of pro-active shopping yourself. If you love Santa canvases (or rabbits, or whatever), just watch for beads, charms, trims, etc. that you really like that are also Santa-themed (or bunnies or whatever it is you tend to stitch). Pick them up on sale and put them in your stash for later. I almost always find a use for my bits of Asian things eventually.

The next step is for me to put the trimmed needlepoint canvas I just stitched around the brown piece of finishing foam and lace the sides down. Then I will need to figure out how and where to attach the bead Buddha, put the layers together and stitch the back layer to the front. The final step will be attaching trim around the edges. I don't have the right trim yet. I waited to buy that last as I wanted to have everything else. The trim needs to look good with all the parts and I wasn't sure what I was using until yesterday when stores closed early because it was New Year's.

By the way, Happy New Year. I saw a nice sentiment on Jane's Japanese Embroidery blog. She wrote "May 2009 bring you smooth silks and even stitches."

I hope you have all that and good health in the new year, too.


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