Vivian Leigh (and More)

Last night I finished up the diagonal trellis squares and then tackled the triangular Sprats heads around the border of Vivian Leigh.  They gave me fits but not because they are hard to stitch.  I had trouble picking a thread to use.  As you remember from yesterday, I decided to use the overdyed silk that was supposed to be used for the Sprats head stitches for the slanted buttonhole variations instead.  But I really didn't want to switch the threads for these two areas because I didn't think black would look good in the Sprats heads.  I thought they'd just disappear into the sashing and border around this square.  That's one of the problems of using black as one of the four colors (plus overdye) for this piece.  You can't do shading well.  Tony's green Sprats heads are not the same shade as his green sashing but my blacks are all pretty similar and in this instance, I wanted more than texture to make these stand out.

So I did a lot of stitching and ripping out.  In the end I settled on using Rainbow Gallery's Rainbow Linen in deep purple #R453.  This is a 100% linen thread in a perle twist.  It makes a lovely contrast to the rest of the stitching, especially the overdyed threads that are also in the border.  I should finish all the Sprats heads today and the bottom area of sashing and be ready to return to my painted canvas tomorrow.

In other news:

Madonna takes scissors to her Red Kerchief canvas.  Not to worry, it turns out just great in the end.
http://frontrangestitches.blogspot.com/2010/04/rk-final-frontier.html

Before I forget, Needle Works' April newsletter is available for viewing on their website.  Links to recent newsletters are in the left column below the green owl canvas.
http://theneedleworks.com/

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