I've been stitching my Renaissance Rat for a while now, but not talking about her since you've already seen Joanne's fabulous Bernice. My rat is ecru, reds and gold and I think she is lovely. Unfortunately she has no head but I'll fix that eventually. I just need the right shade of brown for her fur.
I want to draw your attention to two things--the red in the bodice versus the red in the skirt bottom. The skirt has red Trebizond silk (it's a perle type thread, very pretty and easy to work with although it can be thick for 18 count, depending on the stitch you've chosen) and the bodice has red Patina nylon perle (not so easy to work with but very shiny and pretty). The two threads are exactly the same color if you compare strands, so when I ran out of the Trebizond, I thought I'd use the Patina on the bodice. Now the bodice is a lighter shade of red-color magic! This does happen, although I think the reason is the nylon thread is shinier than the silk perle.
The second thing I wanted to mention is that I used Kreinik's red and gold mix #203 for French knots on the bodice. I really like the effect although this is a very ugly thread on the spool!
Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
