Two Directions for a Turkey

Nancy's Turkey Canvas

After reading Nancy's latest message about her turkey canvas, I started thinking about the two main ways I see this canvas can be stitched.  I'm talking about the turkey body itself now, not the background or the border, not the head or the tail or wing feathers.

Nancy's busy looking for stitches that look like feathers.  That means ray stitches, leaf stitches, triangular shaped stitches, wedges, and fan shapes.  But this isn't the only way to go and it probably isn't the way I personally would stitch this bird.   I think I would needlepaint him.

Needlepainting goes by many names.  It uses stitches like stem stitch, long and short stitch, satin stitches and even Gobelin and split stitches.  I think in essence needlepainting uses a variety of straight stitches to mimic realistic animals and plants.  Because the direction of the stitches is so important, folks working on the grid of needlepoint canvas probably will want to use a sharp needle so that they can control stitch placement in either holes or through threads.

If you would like to see needlepainting in action, you should read Mary Corbet's article on the art below.  There are links to the Chinese site that sells needlepainted pieces which are amazing when it comes to interpreting animals with threads.
http://www.needlenthread.com/2011/01/needlepainting-hand-embroidery-in-silk.html

Remember that any painted canvas can be stitched multiple ways.  There really aren't any wrong decisions if you achieve what you wanted when you started stitching.  I'm just pointing out another path for those who would not use more stylized stitches to create the body of this bird.

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