Once the sky stitch was the proper size to look good with the rest of my South Seas Fiji design, the only things left were the tree and the metallic hanger at the top of the ornament. I've decided that I want to frame this piece with a mat cut out in a circle so that looking at South Seas Fiji is like looking through a peephole. It should be a glimpse at Paradise in my mind. So I won't be stitching the top of the ornament. I'll probably just put a row of tent stitches all around the perimeter.
That leaves the palm tree fronds unstitched. I started them yesterday but didn't talk about them. Donna, that's why the top of the tree looked so faint yesterday. I had just started the stitching and didn't make that clear in what I wrote. If you look at yesterday's photo, you can see the darker fronds stitched with a ply of the same dark forest green Splendor (#S907) I used for the tree line in the background. I am doing stem stitch for the fronds. It gives me a thin line since I am just using one ply of silk. I topped the line and filled it out with a strand of dark green Petite Treasure Braid #P853. This adds sparkle to the tree while the dark silk underneath gives a shadow. It takes a long time to stem stitch the fronds with such a thin thread but I think building up the fronds slowly works best.
In the photo above you can see that I've started working on the lighter colored fronds using a medium green Splendor in color S906. Once I finish all the fronds (using the color copy of the plain unstitched canvas as my guide) I will go back and add a ply of Sparkle Braid (a thin metallic strand similar in size to my Petite Treasure Braid) in color SK08 on top. Then I will have to decide whether to use an even lighter color of Splendor to add more highlights and shadows. I'm playing with color and texture here, trying to make the palm tree memorable and realistic, too.
Wish me luck! I'm going to add three more threads to my thread stash count....
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
7 comments:
I love it!
Glad you like the palm tree so far, Donna. I have a lot more to do on it but this part can't be rushed. Sorry I didn't make clear how far along I was on the tree and misled you into thinking it was finished.
My comment is of a technical nature...get your circular mat first...you may have to add more than one row of tent stitches around the design. The mat will be a perfect circle; odds are that the stitched piece will not be and you may have to fill in the difference with the tent stitching. This happened to me on a piece of New York City landmarks that was set up in pie shaped wedges with the Circle Line (a boat that circles Manhattan) in the center. The piece appeared round when viewed without the mat, but when the mat was put over it, you could see the differences. I needed close to 8 rows of tent stitch in some areas and one or two inothers. If you want it too look like a vies from a porthole, I suggest a silverish or brass metalic because the frame of the porthole would be metal.
Very good points, Edy. I plan to have the mat cut slightly smaller than the ornament for just this reason. I hadn't thought to use a porthole metal colored mat. Great idea!
Very lovely, as usual. Glad someone is using their stash and stitching! I am busy canning. But soon I will be done and able to stitch again!
I love the porthole metal colored mat idea! The tree is growing right along!
Beth, can some beans and pickled okra for me, please. I don't can as it takes way too long for just the two of us to eat things up but that doesn't mean I don't love a good mess of pickles.
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