A Quiet Oasis

Cha-Cha's Tree Branch

Every embellished painted canvas needs a quiet oasis of calm to rest the eyes.  That's the established wisdom, which recommends having areas of tent stitch on each canvas.  You know me--I think the rules are meant to be broken--but there is sense in this, particularly for a piece with a great deal going on.

I'm trying to calm down the canvas by using related round or oval stitches on the flowers and leaves but when I first started to think about the cluster of fruit and the tree branch they rest on, I decided that it might be smart to stitch the branch itself all in tent stitches.

So that's what I did, except that I skipped the little clinging vine that twists around the branch.  Those areas I did not stitch.  Once I finished stitching (three shades of brown, Mandarin Floss for the dark and medium browns and DMC cotton floss for the lightest tan) the branch, I couched Kreinik braid around the branch as the vine.

Then with my leftover tail of Kreinik and some of the leftover darkest brown, I also stitched the peach stem.  The Kreinik make padding in a sort of backwards 7 shape, which I covered in smooth stitches using the brown floss.  If you enlarge the photo you probably can see the backwards 7.  In this photo I haven't covered the metallic padding with brown floss yet.

Then I stitched the plum's stem in tent stitches with some leftover black floss.

Once the branch and the fruit stems were finished, I'd laid the foundation for the more embellished grapes,  plum and peach.  More on that next time.

I stitched the two smallest leaves last night and finished half of another of the large leaves.  Six more leaves to go!

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