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."
**************************

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