I decided the easiest place to start on the Stuart Plaid Lion ornament was the plaid section, and I also decided to work all the plaid a color at a time. This is a bit chancy as the various lines and rows and boxes are of different sizes. It is really easy to do a block three stitches wide and then do the section above it four stitches wide by accident. So I am careful to work a vertical column at a time, making sure that the next color I use is done in stitches that are as wide or narrow as previous colors in that section.
In the above photo, I have worked all the reds, using the Trio (Really Red #T312) for the bright red and the holographic Kreinik (Robot Red #003L) for the dark red. As I mentioned yesterday, I used size #8 Kreinik braid for the single line of tent stitches and the larger size #12 Kreinik braid for the blocks of cashmere or Scotch stitches. I liked how those two sizes covered these various sections.
I worked the single line in tent stitches first, then stitched the single stitches around the paws and tail, then worked the larger boxes and rectangles for each color.
Once those areas were done (and it took longer than you'd think as there is a lot of red in the plaid) I worked the black squares and lines in the same fashion, using the Felicity’s Garden Cast Iron Black #008. Felicity's Garden is a silk/Merino wool blend tapestry style thread. You can't ply it, unlike Trio, but the two thread brands are both half silk and half merino wool.
I love the silky shine of Felicity's Garden and since I have a nice little stash of it, I used it often. It works well on either 13 or 18 count canvas if you are doing tent stitches. On the Stuart Plaid Lion, it looks very deep and inky black in comparison to the two red threads. It's perfect for my purpose, in other words, although there is a bit of black fuzziness compared to Trio which--although fuzzier when unstitched--is less so stitched. Here is the Felicity's Garden website. They offer a shaded overdyed Felicity's Garden called Felicity's Garden Duet, a lambswool/alpaca tapestry thread called Newport Harbor which is made up of shades of colors, and Annabelle's Playhouse, which is a wool tapestry yarn.
http://www.rosebud-studio.com/yarn-menu.htm
I'll have a photo tomorrow that shows the black areas stitched and reveals the interesting things I plan for the thin yellow and white lines and the slightly larger blue lines in the plaid.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
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