My Trip to Woodlawn (Part Two)

Picking up where I left off last time, it is always interesting to see two very similar pieces hung close together.  Woodlawn always tries to group like items together.  (By the way, you can read much more about how Woodlawn is organized at this blog which Arlene found for us.)
http://maggiebsmocks.typepad.com/smocking/2011/03/my-connection-to-the-woodlawn-needlework-exhibition.html

The small parlor had two Native American Indian pieces -- one of a deerskin outfit with fringe, tassels and beads -- and the other of an Indian woman in front of a string art "dream catcher," also beaded.  I think both of these pieces were embellished cross stitch.  They looked great together!  The same room had a crewel chair lightly covered in the American style with birds.  I was told this was an original design.  Kudos to the stitcher/designer!  The chair was lovely.  Nearby was a set of sandpiper brick covers and a pillow in with a sandpiper design.  Sandpipers are ocean birds.  I had an immediate vision of these adorning someone's seaside cottage.

As always, Woodlawn had several traditional wool rugs.  One was an Elizabeth Bradley floral with 6 panels and the other a leopard patterned all-over design with a fancy red and yellow curved border.  (The border was curved, not the edge of the rug.)  The EB rug looked something like this, except it was made up of single floral squares with the names of the flowers written on the bottom.  This link shows a small version of a rug, not the full thing.  It certainly gives you the flavor of such a rug however!
http://www.needlepoint.com/designers/elizabeth-bradley/cottage-garden-favourites.html

As usual, Woodlawn sets aside the fancy parlor as a display area for Asian-themed designs.  These included kimonos, a nice Mindy Japanese quilt design, and dragons, including a very large Chinese dragon pillow.  There were two koi design pictures, hung together.  I personally liked a long fish pillow done all in metallics (the fish) with a plain regular thread (probably silk/wool) background of seaweed.  The fish sparkled in the sunlight, giving a wet but elegant look to the creature as he swam forever on his pillow.

Because these are traditional designs, don't think only classic pieces were sent in this year!  I saw a very cute stitched license plate that read Needle Ptr, one of Leigh's Floozies (with a lovely green and gold chain link necklace), and a cross stitch framed piece of abstract brush strokes in bold colors.  There were also two stunning original abstracts by Kurdy Biggs.  Both of the Biggs designs were octagon shapes, but one was in pastels on black canvas and the other featured a very sophisticated palette of olive, rust, navy and blue-gray.  Both used complex Hilton stitches to great effect but I have to say I think I'd take the olive octagon home in a heartbeat!  It is tied for my I'd Take It Home If I Could Award this year.

Sadly I can't show you photos of much of the above but the Floozies series is widely shown online.  The one I saw was similar to this except for that gorgeous green and gold chain necklace which seemed to be made up of tiny flat sequins or charms.
http://threadworx.com/floozies

Around the corner is the parlor one passes on the way to the Tea Room if you are having lunch.  There I adored the Alaska Angel piece from In Good Company,
http://np.theneedlepointer.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=76&products_id=5571&zenid=nbr7thd3ufl1ht8uvsdp3cg6b1

but was unable to really study much of the stitching located there.  I did notice a coat of arms banner and several floral pieces I would have loved to study furtner.  The standout was Connie Jordan't ruby slipper pillow, which featured a stitched and stuffed shoe on top of the stitched pillow. It was glitzy and unusual and a great treat to see.

I'm running out of time again, so I'll continue this later....

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com