Learning From the Masterful Sharon Garmize

I ran out of time this morning writing about stitching the wooden bar's top and the floor of Cape Cod Dogs before I was able to mention where I got the idea. I read the needlepoint magazines and my stitch books religiously, studying all the projects and photographs with an eye for great ideas I can use elsewhere. Now that there are so many blogs by stitchers, designers and shops, the places to rummage around for ideas on the Internet are endless. But some sources are much better than others, and no one is a better stitcher than the needlepoint designer SharonG.
http://www.sharong.com/

You've probably admired her canvases with their beautiful shading for years. She's one of my very favorite designers as I love realistic designs with beautiful shading, but her designs cover much more. Her art also includes abstract and funny canvases; she immortalizes anything from a fountain pen to a corset to a scarecrow to alley cats to the rear ends of horses. She is Talent Personified. I devour everything she says on her blog. Look at this entry.
http://sharongneedlepointdesigner.blogspot.com/2009/06/ct35-is-newer-canvas-that-now-has.html

Now look at the second photo, the one called Maria's Door (canvas D31). SharonG was stitching this to create a stitch guide for her design and posted a photo of the unfinished canvas. Click on the image to enlarge it and study it carefully. Look at the stone steps and how she changed direction of the darning stitches to show you the side of a step versus the flat top. Study the ruined wall and see how the direction of the stitches change on either side of the wrought iron gate. Notice how she uses different stitches on the sections of the wall to show different materials or a shadow. SharonG is a master of stitching painted canvases as well as designing them.

Looking carefully and critically at what she did with this piece showed me how important stitch direction is for darning and light coverage stitches. When I bought Cape Cod Dogs I knew I wanted to use light coverage stitches for the floor and the top of the bar; when I saw SharonG's canvas of the ruined wall, I knew I would have to take into consideration the flow of the stitches and which direction they were oriented in order to make the wooden planks look good. The bar top itself is on a slant, so I used slanted stitches. (Well, the stitches are horizontal but they run diagonally, giving the slanted effect of stairs seen from the side.) I tried running my stair step stitch on the bar's top with the canvas sitting upright but discovered that I needed to turn the canvas on its side with the window section at the top to make this stitch work.

The floor boards are oriented vertically | with a vanishing point in the back wall. So I stitched those horizontally with a thread that exactly matched the paint in the front section (which explains why you can see these stitches better in the back where the thread and the paint contrast).

You can call me a student of SharonG, as well as an admirer of her painted canvases.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Which Way Does Your Floor Board Lay?

It's been another hectic weekend in Chilly Hollow but luckily the stitching for the top of the old wooden bar and the floor in the Cape Cod Dogs bar went quickly. With just one ply of the darkest brown floss from the wooden shelves, I did an over 4/under 1 darning stitch for the floor. The top of the bar was a stair step like stitch over four threads done on the diagonal. After the stitches were in a few long stitches in a contrasting thread added the edges of the boards. Very easy stitches but the trick is to figure out the direction to lay them that will give you the best effect.

In the photo above you can see the floor darning stitch best in the background near the wall where the thread color doesn't match the painting underneath. This stitch was a _ stitch done horizontally like this ____ - ____. The little - is the thread of the needlepoint canvas the real thread goes under before coming up to cover another four threads of the canvas.

The bar darning stitches are best seen covering the white patch of sunlight reflected by one of the glasses. To do the stairstep stitch, I turned the canvas on its side so that the window area was at the top. As I said, these are easy stitches (it took me less than 2 hours to do both areas including the top stitches that are the edges of the boards) but I did spend some time experimenting to see which way the stitches should run and which side of the canvas should be facing the top while I stitched.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow