Ch'ing has a metal ornament hanger top now! Last night I choose two other golds that look good with the vintage gold-colored Treasure Ribbon I used to outline the scales of our Chinese red dragon, then used long tent stitches to do vertical lines of various colors on the hanger top. I worked top down on row one, then bottom up on row two, etc., starting with a regular tent stitch followed by a row of elongated tent stitches over two threads instead of the normal one. The last stitch in each row was a regular tent stitch. Each row is a different shade of gold.
For the golds I used Treasure Braid TR83 for the regular gold (in 8 strand size--this thread comes in 4 strands, 8 strands or 16 strands so you can put it on any canvas count from congress cloth to 13-14 count); Treasure Braid TR81 (8 strand size) for the yellow gold; and Petite Treasure Ribbon in PR30 for the dark vintage gold. I left the ends of each gold thread on top of the canvas so you could compare the various shades of gold. The vintage gold and the yellow gold are on the left side and the regular gold on the right.
In the photo you see the finished ornament top and the ring that goes on top in its little package that came with the canvas. I think you are supposed to put the looped end on the back side of your canvas and thread the open end through a hole to the front, then come back down on the other side of the metal ornament top, go back through a hole there and then fasten the open end into the loop to close it. If you then tied down the top of the loop with a couched stitch, it would stay in position. I was a bit too tired to tackle this last night, so I put the canvas away and added a little more red lettering to the endless boring border of Cape Cod Dogs instead. I am close to half done with the border. Hopefully I will finish it before Ch'ing is completely done.
Tonight I'll attach the ring and continue work on the dragon's head. I've started the head but decided it would be better to talk about the dragon's head and fins in logical order, not in the order I stitched them.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
