Last night I gave the little dog his Santa stocking cap. The red is stitched in random long stitches, slanting to show direction, using Vinceyard Silk for the bright red and Silk N Colors in a darker variegated red for the shading. The fur trim is all French knots, just one wrap, done in Burmilana (white) and Medici (gray). I can see lint in the photo from the wool in these threads I'll need to remove today.
You can see in the photo that I've started filling in the large snowflakes at the top using white Very Velvet. I am not quite sure I like this as much as I like the couched lines in Very Velvet. In a certain light the Very Velvet looks pink paired with the red Crystal braid. I will think on this while I work on the dog's body.
Mixing whites with other whites and whites with strong colors can be tricky. I think the white Burmilana on the dog's cap looks ok with the white in the Very Velvet but I'm not sure. Another thing to think about. I wasn't going to use the Burmilana and Medici on Elmer's muzzle but now I think I might want to, just to minimize any differences between the face and cap.
Do any of you stitch a lot of Santas? How do you handle the differences between Santa's white beard and the fur trim on his red Santa suit?
I plan to pad the candy cane and stitch it tonight and then work on the muzzle. That's The Plan anyway but things change. Elmer is a very demanding dog!
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
4 comments:
Jane, in doing Santas, I use a different fiber on his beard than the suit trim along with a different stitch for each. I would use a different white fiber and stitch for his muzzle as you do want to differentiate that.
Thanks, Pat. I was afraid a different white would look odd but I'll try using a different thread and stitch and see how it looks. Anyone else have any insight into this issue?
Jane,
I've been wrestling with this very issue myself on a large stocking. I did the beard in Medici wool in "blanc", which is a distinct off-white. I used long stitches and then brushed it with a wire tool to make it the beard "fluff up." The artist who painted the canvas shows the fur as a very bright white, textured with grays. I'm now experimenting with very light grays and silvers. I have a mohair fiber called
Wisper, which is a possibility. I may use turkey stitch and trim in down for the fur, but I'm not sure. There's a LOT of fur. I'm eager to see what you do. Indiana Robin
You'll see tomorrow morning that I used Wisper on Elmer's muzzle. I had a card of white and a card of gray and did tent stitches. It's a little fuzzier than the rest of his body so it stands out more.
You'll also see that I used two other white threads on the top and toe of the stocking, which means I used four in all, all pretty much stark white. There are a lot of ivory shades but I wanted to stick with one shade of white in many types of threads. More on this tomorrow, as I said.
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