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