Holi has most of the flowers I planned stitched on top of, under or beside her halo now. I still need to add some small gold beads but ran out of time. Once everything is done, I'll post a closeup photo for you to study. I outlined Holi's head in stem stitches using my ecru perle cotton #8 but I might rip that out and try using the same white Whisper I used for the fur instead. Haven't decided on that yet. Note that the paw is not outlined since I haven't finished the tent stitch background around it yet.
I finally choose a thread for step four on the overskirt. That's the skirt area filled by lime green boxes with overdyed yellow and orange Kreinik in a cashmere variation inside. The isntructions say to use the same thread used when one tented stitched around the perimeter of the box innards, but since I used #16 braid (in Kreinik's 5982 which is dark green mixed with lighter green and gold) for those stitches, I thought it was too heavy a thread. I rummaged around in my stash and found a spool of Kreinik #085 in #4 very fine braid. #4 braid is much smaller and even though 085 is blue, green and gold, I thought it would work. You see the result in the photo. The tiny #4 very fine braid looks nice on top of the yellows and oranges and because it is thin, you don't notice that it has much more blue in it than the original 5982 color.
I guess my next step will be to finish the halo off with beads, then start on the dividing line that separates the two halves of the skirt. I'm not sure if I will use the overdyed orange/yellow Kreinik or the green and gold Kreinik. Stay tuned!
I just might use both....
Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
