I got two comments this week from folks who admitted they don't stitch painted canvases because they are afraid they will make a mistake and ruin them.
In answer to these comments, above is Exhibit A, also known as South Seas Fiji from Leigh Designs.
I added the water in long random zig zag stitches using three colors of Accentuate (baby blue has no color number, medium blue #67 and navy blue 138). I also tent stitched the white beach and tree line back in the background using two plies of dark green Splendor silk #S907 and white Splendor S800.
I like how the white beach looks but did think about adding a few French knots to the green tree area to make it more tree-like. I finally decided against it since the palm tree's fronds cover some of this area. I don't want to take away from the palm tree which is the main element of the design, so no French knots for now. I may change my mind and add them later once the palm tree is stitched and I have a better idea of whether a dimensional element in the tree line will make this canvas look better or not. But if I had added the French knots and decided I didn't like them, I could have just pulled them out again. I might have had to rip out the green tent stitches, too but that's no big deal. I haven't stitched the palm tree fronds yet so I wouldn't disturb them and the sky isn't done either.
I'm testing a small Ming stitch in the sky using the same Thread Gatherer overdye that I used for the green areas on the right barkcloth side of the ornament. Don't know if I like it yet. I wanted something rounded like clouds but this may be too regular. I had to see how it looked with the palm tree to make up my mind. If I don't like it, it is very easy to simply rip out the single strand of silk.
I'm not sure about the water yet. The stitch looks good (much better in person as it sparkles like the ocean on a sunny day) but I wonder if I shouldn't have used two plies of the baby blue Accentuate. I may rip that out and use just one. I only used one ply of the medium aqua and one of the navy. Does the light blue water look too intense to you? I hoped to convey depth and sunlight by varying the amount of Accentuate (one strand versus two) but I don't know if I succeeded. I'll think about it today and perhaps I'll rip out tonight and perhaps I won't. It certainly is no big deal to stitch something on a painted canvas and change your mind.
Of course I do a lot of test stitching threads and stitches before I put them on the canvas and I also work from the back forwards usually so that I don't have to rip out the foreground if I change my mind about the background, but it is durn hard to ruin a painted canvas.
The one exception is congress cloth. If you stitch on congress cloth, you enlarge the very small holes. So if you rip out you have to be a bit careful to make sure the larger holes aren't obvious. I've known folks to just put an empty unthreaded needle through
all the holes so that the ripped out ones don't look odd! The moral is if you are worried about ruining a painted canvas, just don't stitch one painted on congress cloth. Easy-peasy.
If I can do it, mess up, rip out and try again and still end up with a nice stitched design at the end, anyone can. This is not astrophysics where a mathematical error puts your calculations off a million miles.
Just be brave and try. You can always shout for help. Your Internet friends will be able to suggest all sorts of things, and--as a very smart woman and dynamite stitcher told me--the more you rip out, the better a stitcher you will be.
Promise.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
