Yesterday I got fascinated by the various threads and stitches I could use to stitch the glasses on the bar and in the shelf behind the bar. I abandoned South Seas Fiji entirely and stitched bottles, a wineglass, a shot glass and champagne glasses, not to mention a tall glass. If you look at the photo above, I'll talk about the threads and stitches I used for each type of glass. The threads are shown in the photo below. The top row (left to right) is the new Water N Ice "Pearl Ice WT12" and Gilt Sylke Twist in 5131 Lincolne Grene. The bottom row, again left to right, is Dede Odgen's Prisms #P-1, Accentuate #300 from Access Commodities, Kreinik's 052F Grapefruit in blending filament, and finally the original Water N Ice in Clear WT1. Note that Kreinike 052F is a glow in the dark thread.
Let's look at the tall glass next to the central mermaid's face. This is a glass suitable for a Tom Collins. I used the original Water N Ice in long diagonal stitches for this. I did try vertical stitches thinking that they would emphasize the tallness of this glass but that didn't look good so I pulled them out and used diagonal stitches instead.
The next glass is the wine glass the mermaid holds. I used the original clear Water N Ice for this also and used horizontal long stitches. I'm not happy about how it looks because the red wine is de-emphasized. I'll be pulling this out today.
The tall green bottle is included because it was my first foray into stitching with Gilt Sylke Twist, the very expensive 16th Century reproduction thread that is flat silk wrapped with gold metallic. This is a gorgeous thread under artificial light! It sparkled like mad while I was stitching with it last night. I did my green bottle in tent stitches for the upper half and elongated tent stitches for the last 4 rows, switching back to tent for the very bottom row. A little gray Accentuate makes up the label and the cap on the top. The thread is like a thin flexible wire. I had not trouble stitching with it although it certainly feels different than the threads we are used to. It adds a touch of sparkle to the focal point of the canvas, which is why I used it. (Plus I was dying to try it out--Threadaholics like me can't resist a new thread. Thanks for providing the temptation, Sara Leigh!) I think this thread will look best done in long decorative stitches on top of a canvas. It is very expensive as you see from the price tag but on the right design, it'll be worth every penny. The original threads and embroideries this was reproduced from must have made the garments they decorated sparkle like stars. I would have loved to have seen the King of France and his court dressed in fabulous embroidered robes at a ball in candlelight!
Moving on to the left you see champagne glasses on the shelf just under the dog's head. I stitched the outlines only of these using two strands of my Accentuate #300 in continental. I tried using long stitches with Water N Ice, didn't like it, pulled them out and tried tent stitching the entire glass with Water N Ice, didn't like that either. (More ripping out.) These glasses need to just be sketched in since they are right under the dog's head. Using anything more than a tent stitch outline makes them too prominent and detracts from the dog's face. We want to see him looking at the mermaid, perhaps talking to her. We don't want the central focus to be on glasses! Eventually I will fill in the area that isn't the champagne glass outline with the same brown threads used for the wooden shelves.
Moving further left, there are 6 wine glasses on the shelf, some hung upside down, some standing. I tried a variety of stitches and threads here. Like the champagne glasses, I tried clear Water N Ice in long stitches first but that looks odd, not like glasses at all. Next I used my Kreinik 052F blending filament doubled in tent stitches, Interlocking Goblein and then in long skinny cross stitches. I am not happy with any of the looks and will pull these out later on as well. I think the glasses are too prominent in the glass threads. I am going to use blue, purple and white Accentuate to stitch the glasses next and we'll see how that looks.
The last glass is the highball glass on the bar just above the dog's paw. It turned out the best of all the glasses in my opinion. I used the new Water N Ice Frosted Pearl #WT12 in long horizontal stitches to cover the painted area, then added a very vertical and horizontal stitches in one strand of my Kreinik blending filament #052F on top. This glass has white outlines painted in and the Kreinik emphasized them. I like the look. In my opinion the Frosted Ice Water N Ice needs a little more space to really look good and this is the largest glass.
If you are keeping track, you know I did not use the Prisms thread. This resembles the new Frosted Ice Water N Ice (except that it is very narrow instead of wide) with a lot of pink and green highlights. I am keeping it in reserve in case the wine glasses I'm going to restitch don't look good in the threads I plan to use.
I also worked on more bottles last night. I have two to go, the black and grape bottle on the second shelf from the top and the square item on the third shelf down. I received several ideas about what this was: a framed photo, the first dollar the bar made framed, a postcard, or perhaps the liquor license. The area is really small and so I think I''m going to turn this into a square whiskey bottle with a gold stopper on top. I think that will look more in keeping with the other items which are all liquor bottles or glasses of one type or another.
Finally (sorry this is so long!) I need to report that most people preferred the jpeg image if they could tell a difference. The PNG image is much larger, takes longer to upload to Blog, and takes up more room. So I will continue to use jpeg images when posting images here. Many thanks to everyone who looked and told me what they saw! On another image note, eBay has a new image format that makes it impossible to copy images from listings so my plan to capture as many images of Anne Jerlow canvases as possible for posterity is at an end.
I'm off to get more coffee and start ripping out wine glasses!
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
