Today's photo shows the split pavilion stitch background I stitched last night. I wanted enough done close to the rabbit's body so that you could get a sense of how the two interact. By the way, the Ming Variation I thought about using is much smaller than split pavilion--four Ming Variation stitches fit in the area covered by one split pavilion.
The only thing I have started stitching besides the background is the left navy inner sleeve lining, a little right sleeve lining, and a bit of the cummberband/obi band around the rabbit's waist. These areas are very dark navy, which has the potential to cause the same three problems on a canvas that black or other very dark colors do.
First, stitching with navy on navy (or any very dark color) is hard on aging eyes. I have to be sure to stitch in good lighting or I can't tell where the holes are or what has been stitched already. For me, good overhead lighting is enough but some folks put a white or red hand towel in their lap or use the lap up lights. These lights seem to be heavy and large (in the link below the stitcher has a cushion under the light) and you should shop around. I saw better prices while searching for the best photo.
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?CATID=cat3248&PRODID=prd29511
Secondly, when you stitch in a very dark area next to a very light area (like the navy sleeve lining which is very close to the light blue background) you have the issue of the dark threads on the back showing through the light color, Sometimes the knot on the back is too close to the light area and threads from that show, sometimes you are tempted to drag a dark thread from dark area #1 across light area to dark area #2 and the dark thread makes a shadow under the light area, sometimes fuzz from the dark threads gets into the light area's threads. Just be careful. I always start a dark thread at a point as far from a light area as possible, am careful how I end a dark thread, and if I think the dark fuzz will get into a light thread, I stitch the light area first (this issue will depend on the types of threads you use as some don't shed fuzz).
The third issue you have to confront when stitching a very dark area is that if you use a matching very dark thread, any fancy stitch you use will just disappear. It can be a lot of work to do a textured stitch. Do you really want that fancy stitch to not show up?
The sleeve stitch will probably be very difficult for you to see, even in the larger version of the photo. I can barely see it myself when I look at the canvas. I used Dotted Swiss, a very simple stitch that is just rows of alternating tent and cross stitches. I normally stitch every other stitch as a cross stitch in the area to be stitched. Each row has a cross stitch under the previous row's skipped stitch and vice versa. You get a checkerboard of cross stitches when you are done, then go back and fill in the unstitched areas with tent stitch.
Why did I use a fancy stitch for this area? Two reasons. I choose two threads for the sleeve lining--Splendor silk in dark navy #S872 which is a perfect match for the navy paint--and Caron's Snow #17 "Carbon." I love stitching with Snow, which is a polyester thread. However it can unravel at the end in the needle's eye if you use a very long strand. Caron recommends not more than a 20 inch length but I normally use just 12 inches at a time and almost never had trouble with Snow.
I didn't want to tent stitch the entire area in Snow, which is pretty sparkly. So I did a line of tent stitches in Snow, then did my cross stitches in four plies of my Splendor so that the thicker Snow and the thinner Splendor in cross stitches were about the same height. The sparkle is still there but it is subdued, and in very good light you can see the texture changes between dull silk and sparkly metallic.
Mixing two threads and two small stitches fancied up the sleeve lining in about the only way I could think of to do fancy in an area where fancy doesn't show up. Hope you like it!
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
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