Follow Up To How to Choose Stitches

Carol wrote:
Thank you for the reply. My takeaway from your comments is that what "works" is truly an aesthetic thing, purely in the eyes of the stitcher. What works for me may not be what works for you. But that's what makes all our pieces different; it's a lot like working with the high school speech team I coach. My oral interpretation of a piece a poetry is going to be different from how my students interpret it. ANYTHING subjective is going to have the same issues.

Jane replied:  True. I think using the guidelines above will help folks choose stitches and I think studying other folks’ stitching will also help. But the true learning will come from working your own painted canvases and figuring out what really works well for you and what doesn’t. There are some good guidelines for choosing stitches and colors (light colors and shiny things generally come forward while dark colors that don't shine generally recede; you need to keep the various parts of a design the same scale in most instances, etc.) but often what looks good to you is what is good. This means there is some really ugly needlepoint in my eyes that wins awards in exhibits.  In those cases I try to see the technical achievement in the stitching, etc.  I think mostly if a piece is a coherent whole, it is well done.  Maybe I wouldn't have done it that way but maybe I also will learn something from a different stitching perspective.

I am certain I could explain this better but for today, this is the best I can do!

Anyone who can articulate how they choose stitches for their designs, please speak up and help the rest of us.  Carol, thanks very much  for the thought-provoking question.

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

Jessica and the Spanish Olives

Robin gives us a lesson on making perfect Jessicas on the Needlepoint Study Hall blog using a thread I've heard quite a few folks rave about--ThreadworX's Spanish Olives.  A lot of fabulous stitchers are using this color in a variety of types of overdyed threads (perle cotton, floss, metallic and even wool).  The second link shows you the color, although I think in real life it is a more complex mix of olive green shading into medium green.  Alas, I have none to compare to the photo so I can't be sure.  [Jane adds Spanish Olives to the shopping list for her yearly trip to the shops.]
http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/2011/04/do-you-know-jessica.html

http://www.threadworx.com/productDetails.php?prd_id=541

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