Pet Guardian Angels Start to Appear in Chilly Hollow

As you know, I stitched all six of Kandace Merric's pet guardian angels from the 1996-1997 Needle Pointers magazines for the ANG Auction. I am only one stitcher of many, however. Other angels are being stitched so a set of 15-20 of them will be sold in Milwaukee at ANG's auction night during the annual seminar. I very cleverly volunteered to coordinate the project so that all the angels would fly to Chilly Hollow for collection and packaging and a photo shoot so that all participants and Kandace herself have a document showing the set before they fly away to their new home with some lucky bidder. If you are going to the Milwaukee Seminar, I hope you'll visit the pet guardian angels on display just before the auction and that'll you'll bid for them.

Here are the five that arrived last week so everyone can enjoy them, too. The photo above is Marita's fantastic red and gold Dalmation, straight from a firehouse! Marita told me a bit about her pet guardian angel's backstory. "Dorothea Barker Winks (Dottie to her friends) is a retired firehouse dog. Her middle name is not any type of statement about her personality. Since she is a good Southern girl from Virginia, her mother chose a family name (actually Grandmother's maiden name) for her middle name. As you can guess, red is her favorite color. She is not one for lots of adornments because after all she worked at the firehouse (also her stitcher really hates to mess with beads). She really does appreciate the bright and shiny colors (red and gold) because they remind her of the fire engines that she so loved to ride on."



The next pet guardian angels are from Carole. The details on these two are amazing.I wish you could see the cunning buttons on the Medieval Cat

















or the perfect stitches on the Tudor Dog's autumn colors and braided trim! I don't want to part with these two at all.
















The final two angels are from Pat who dressed her Tudor Dog in the same white, royal blue and gold of the original model using delicate stitches and a very pretty wing pattern.














Her Georgian Rabbit's lovely blue eye and graceful head caught my eye first, then I realized how beautiful the lace trim, the bows and the floral trim are on this piece.


It is going to be very difficult to mail these away to the Auction Chairman!

I'll post more photos as more angels arrive.



Jane/Chilly Hollow
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Most Boring Border and a Question

I'm trying a canvas rotation as I stitch Ch'ing, the Leigh Chinese Dynasty ornament. I'm also working on Needlepoint of Back Bay's interpretation of Cape Cod Dogs by Elizabeth Mumford. I decided I would work on the border of Cape Cod Dogs as it is done mostly in basketweave. As you can see, I am almost half finished basketweaving the border background. I'm using Impressions, a silk/wood blend from Caron in the color 0020 which is black. It's a lovely thread, one strand of which covers on 18 count nicely. It's dull and mindless work, but rather soothing to do at night when I'm tired or while I'm thinking about the next fancy stitch for Ch'ing.

To liven things up a bit for myself, I am also tent stitching the red lettering in the border, using my red Hi-Lights #H614, the same thread I used for the metallic Scotch Stitches in the background of Ch'ing. (Good thing I didn't use it all up doing Ch'ing's whole background!) It is perfect for the words around Cape Cod Dogs. It is sparkly but not too shiny. I want the letters to be visible but not so loud as to take attention away from the dogs and mermaids at the bar. Once a person looks around and spots the details (the view out the window, the fact that the women at the bar have tails, the little liquor bottles and the glasses, etc.) then I want them to find the lettering and laugh.

One thing to consider when doing lettering that wraps around a border is that you have to keep the tent stitches oriented toward the right side of the canvas. No turning the canvas to have the letters readable and tent stitch them in that orientation!

To liven things up here a bit more, I took photos yesterday of the day lilies that line the driveway to the house as they are really looking great this year. We've had a cool and wet spring and summer up until last week (and rain is predicted for today) and they are very very happy. Hope you enjoy the slide show I made on the left side of the page right under the "Prayer for Stress Free Travel" icon from Sundance that's the canvas of the day.

Which reminds me--do you like the Canvas of the Day feature? Or does it just clutter up Blog? I have to admit with a canvas of the day, a slide show, the ANG Auction slide show of the pet guardian angels and my two current projects shown, the lefthand side of the page is getting cluttered! What do you think? Should I drop anything that I have there now?

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow