As you probably noticed yesterday when examining my floor boards and bar, I've started stitching the largest of two labs on Cape Cod Dogs. I'm using two strands of Burmilana, which is a wool/acrylic mix that comes in a thin strand. Here are the colors available. Note that there are solids and also mixes of shades called twills, tweeds and heathers. These combinations of colors will give you a very natural look or in the case of Twills, a striped effect of contrasting colors.
http://www.needlestack.com/WebStore/Thread/Madeira_Burmilana.html
I left the strands of the two solid colors I'm using (the lighter is stitched on the back, the more golden from the collar up) lying on the canvas so you could see what this thread looks like. I enjoy using Burmilana, especially for furs. I had intended to use random stitches (a variation of long and short stitch from crewel embroidery) for the dog, but I use it a lot and have noticed a great many folks are very nervous of stitching animals this way. I find it an easy and forgiving stitch but it does take a while to do, so I thought why not branch out and try something else? So here we are. What you see is Knotted Stitch from page 47 of Julia Snyder's Backgrounds & Such. It is a long slanted stitch, similar to Interlocking Goblein except that it has a tiny reversed tent stitch that ties each long stitch down in the middle. I suspect it has other names but I haven't taken the time to see if I can find Knotted Stitch in other stitch dictionaries under another name. [Note that I found Knotted Stitch on page 49 of More Stitches for Effect.]
I have discovered that you need to carefully lay the long stitches for a smooth look, which I am going to need here. I will blend the two shades of tan on the dog's face and probably on the middle of its back to suggest highlights and might add a third shade of brown around his ears. I also will probably top stitch a thin line around his ear with a darker brown. I am not quite sure how this will work so I am going to stitch his face first as it is a smaller area to rip out if this doesn't work the way I think it will. I may rough up the stitch slightly to make it fuzzier also. Haven't decided yet on that.
If you study the picture, you'll see two slightly raised stitches on the left side of the dog near the collar. These are two tent stitches I put in to compensate the edge of the dog's body. They really don't look like the rest of the stitching so I'm only doing full stitches for now until I figure out how to stitch the edge without having the stitches that compensate stick out like this. I may switch to one strand of Burmilana when I do the compensation stitches....
Back to my rut of stitching animals with long and short stitch and random variations of it.
Sue Dulles and Mary Corbert are both writing about long and short stitch and how they work it to realistic effect. Mary is an embroidery teacher, and promises videos later of a project she designed you can work along with her to learn how to do long and short stitch. Sue is a needlepointer. Either or both will have great ideas and help if you want to try a realistic animal or flower in this stitch. Here's Mary's first two postings--
And here are Sue's, which uses her dog portrait as an example. I highly recommend that you read along and learn how to do long and short stitch. It really does create realistic animals!
http://sudukc.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/how-i-random-stitch/
http://sudukc.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/random-pictures/
After all, if the Knotted Stitches don't seem to be turning out well, I'll probably go back to random long and short to stitch the largest dog. The small dog in the background will probably be in long and short or in tent stitches as it is quite small, too small for Knotted Stitch. So I'll fall back into my rut on this piece elsewhere, but I wanted to try something different and something that more folks would be comfortable trying on their canvases of animals.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
http://sudukc.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/random-pictures/
After all, if the Knotted Stitches don't seem to be turning out well, I'll probably go back to random long and short to stitch the largest dog. The small dog in the background will probably be in long and short or in tent stitches as it is quite small, too small for Knotted Stitch. So I'll fall back into my rut on this piece elsewhere, but I wanted to try something different and something that more folks would be comfortable trying on their canvases of animals.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
5 comments:
Hi Jane,
I like the look of the knotted stitch, which I've used before (why do I think I used it for a tree trunk?). I happen to think that random long & short work best for fur, but I know that a lot of people have trouble with randomness.
Denise
Denise, the Judy Snyder book recommends this stitch both for tree trunks and fur, which is what drew my notice to it. I wondered how it could look like both, but of course it depends on how regularly the stitch is laid and the threads one uses. I like it so far and as you said, many folks have a lot of trouble with the long and short stitch, much less trying to do it "randomly." That word scares a lot of folks off and I wanted to do something less scary and also different from my usual way of going about things. I'm in needlepoint for the adventure, after all! LOL
So, does stitched dog hair stick on you like real dog/cat hair does? The Kaffe Fasset Needlepoint book, the one published years ago, has a short but good description of how to do long & short stitches.
Sometimes less is more (and sometimes more is more)
I'll have to pull out my copy and see if I can find it. Kay Fassett is not one to do fancy stitches but his designs are so spectacular in and of themselves that anything beyond tent stitches is Too Much.
Thanks for the tip, Marianne. I haven't re-read any of his books in several years. It is time to do that again.
And to answer Marianne's question, no, only the ripped out stitches stuck to me. But of course I have a dog blowing its coat right now. Nothing sticks like that!
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