This month's Canvas of the Month is from Lee and it was chosen by Bonnie (we take turns picking a design for this Blog feature). It's one of Lee's fan canvases, the Wisteria Fan F743. We don't know the size of this canvas or what count it's on, but I will assume it is an 18 count piece for the purposes of choosing threads and stitches.
http://www.newleesneedlearts.com/files/catalog/f/album/slides/F743.html
There is a matching wisteria kimono canvas, which Ruth Dilts has done an amazing job stitching. You can buy the kimono canvas and Ruth's stitch guide (written with Joan Lohr) via your shop. Here's a photo of the matching kimono canvas.
http://store.apneedlearts.com/kimono.html
Bonnie's Wisteria Fan:
I have a small collection of fans – most which are paper fans that I purchased when I was young. I have always been drawn to them, thus the ‘call’ of this canvas to me.
I would start with the wisteria. I have seen a couple of wisteria pieces that were all beaded for the flowers – they were gorgeous. So that is a great idea, but I would try another direction. I think a strandable silk like Splendor would provide a great sheen for the flowers. Long and short stitches would work and allow the rounded edges to not be a headache. Make sure the stitches all angle towards to base of the flowers. An overdyed thread would be great to make the flowers more realistic if you can find the right color combinations otherwise just make your own shading as you go with the long and short stitch. If using overdyes I would reverse the strands in the needle so you don’t get striping, but blended colors.
Leaves would be done in a cotton overdye to give them a little depth in color, but the cotton would make them recede behind the flowers. A feather stitch would work great for the leaves or a leaf stitch if you didn’t want the center vein of the leaf. The stems would work great in a stem stitch with the same fiber. For the tendrils I see a couple of choices. A perle cotton couched with a single strand of floss would allow the couching to disappear and the twist of the perle cotton would emphasize the twist of the tendril. A whipped backstitch with a floss would also make a wonderful twist.
Lastly for the wisteria part of the canvas you have the branches. My first thought was to do a padded stem stitch band with wool, but I am concerned that would make the branches too prominent compared to the flowers. So I would try the same stitch with no padding or maybe switch to filling the branches with stem stitches. The thread with some wool provides the third texture in the wisteria – the flowers, leaves and trunk are all different!
Next I would tackle the background. This part was tough to come up with a stitch that would work. I originally wanted to do a darning pattern, but stitch direction is an issue. So I needed to find something that didn’t have a strong direction look to it when done. I think I would try a single strand of the light green color floss or a very subtle shaded overydye, so most of the wonderful shaded color would come from the painted canvas not the thread and stitching. For a stitch I would try a four way continental, a little wavy stitch or maybe a reverse basketweave would give a nice fabric look.
The bottom part of the fan would look great in a cotton overdye to give it the wood look. I would try a knotted stitch breaking the stitches at each of the divisions. The three sections on the right would be angled one way and the ones on the left in the opposite direction. Remember the sections at the bottom are reversed from the ones at the top!
Lastly we have the black edge. I am thinking a simple tent stitch in black silk. A Smyrna cross with Kreinik metallic would work for the brads. Depending on how you plan on finishing this you may want to complete some of the white area with a darning pattern of some sort with a light coverage thread like floss or #12 perle cotton. That completes this great fan!
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
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