I added a bit more blonde hair to the larger mermaid last night and smoothed out the zigzag lines on her face with a ply of my darkest skin color. I need to do a little more with the hair to cover her face more but ran out of time last night as I got distracted by the sailor.
I stitched his large collar in #5 white DMC perle cotton and the white areas of his hat ribbon in #8 DMC perle cotton. Red bits will go on top of the ribbon but I will need to finish his hair first before I do the ribbon and hat. I also did the blue highlights on the sailor's back with Thread Gatherer's Silk N Colours silk floss in the overdyed blue Delphinium. I'll see tonight if which size of the perle cotton looks better on the back of the sailor. My thought was I'd use the fatter #5 perle to make the collar stand out a bit against a back done in the smaller #8 perle cotton. We'll see if what I think will work actually does!
In case you didn't read yesterday's comments, Ginger recommended I try split stitch for a face next time I have one to stitch. She says many church embroideries use it and that it looks great. I know this, as I've long been an admirer of the ecclesiastical embroideries that Mary Corbet posts photos of on her website. Why I didn't think of using split stitch for a face I don't know! It's not like I am unused to using it. I've just never thought to do it when I had faces to stitch.
Thanks, Ginger. I appreciate the tip. For anyone who hasn't seen these English-style church embroideries, here is a taste.
Amazing!
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
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