Conquering the Painted Canvas

Leigh Designs' Barcelona Coaster

As you know I stitch models for various designers and create a detailed stitch guide for the shops to sell along with the canvas.  I just finished working on the small 6x6 "coaster" size of Barcelona, which is one of Leigh Design's ESPANA series.   These designs are inspired by Spanish themes and are all on yellow 18 count canvas.  You can see the original large size of Barcelona and the other seven designs in the series here. The small coaster-sized designs will be revealed at the Columbus trade show.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp624x.html

Above is the canvas that Leigh sent me to stitch for Columbus.  As you can see, this isn't a realistic canvas.  I normally choose canvases that are realistic but when you do stitch guides for designers, you don't always choose what you work on.  So that's one problem for me--I don't have the normal clues that realistic designs provide.  I know exactly what a real cosmos blossom looks like but the flower above is stylized.  I also see a problem due to the lace overlay:  What does one do to stitch that?  Should I stitch the background and leaves the same way for the area under the lace as I do for the area that has no lace on top?

The first thing I do when I have a canvas to figure out is to decide on the focal points, the places that are important to emphasize.  That is easy for this piece--there are the two flower/leaf clusters, the lace on the side, and the round blue and white areas behind the flowers.  I decided since this canvas had the special problem of having an area (the lace) that is on top of other areas, I needed to decide on a stitch for the yellow background and the leaves first.

I often choose stitches that echo the shape of an area that I have to fill in.  Looking at the grid of the lace, Scotch stitches immediately came to mind.  Not all the blocks that the lace grid create are exactly the same size but Scotch stitches can be made larger or smaller by adding or taking away some of the / stitches.
http://www.needlepoint.org/StitchOfTheMonth/98-06.php


If you keep looking at the lace area, you'll see some of the "holes" in the center of the lace floral patterns are round, not grid boxes.  I decided I would put Scotch stitches in the middle of the large holes but simple tent stitches in the smaller holes.  A mix of tent and Scotch stitches could also do the leaves that you glimpse under the lace.

I still had to decide what to use for the lace itself and how to handle the yellow background that isn't under the lace.  Studying the Scotch stitch diagram above from the ANG website, I realized I could put a bead in the corners where the Scotch stitches meet and make the yellow background that was away from the lace richer if I could find the right color of bead.  It would be easy to continue the layout of the Scotch stitches by just counting over from the lace area.  So that's what I did for the yellow background.  Scotch stitches with beads in the corners for the non-lace area; no beads under the lace grid.  Tent stitches in the lace-covered areas that had too many color changes to do Scotch stitches or were too small for one Scotch box to fit.

Each choice you make on a canvas influences the next choice.  Now I had a gridded background that was going to be rich in pattern and glitter with the addition of beads.  That meant I had to choose something for the lace that would match the glitter of the non-lace covered yellow background.  Easy!  More beads!  I used beads for the gray lace.  It was harder to find the right shade of bead for the lace since gray beads are rare  (there are lots of silver shades but not much dark gray) but with the help of Sundance and Leigh herself, I ended up with some wonderful blue-gray beads that make the lace look terrific.

That left me with the flowers, leaves and the rounded patterns which I decided were Spanish pottery plates.  I'm afraid you'll have to wait for Barcelona to be revealed at Columbus to see how I made the plain flowers and leaves stand up to a beaded background and beaded lace, or how I stitched the "plates" to make them a calm oasis amongst the fancy patterns and beads.

However, analyzing a canvas before you begin and having the faith in yourself to work it a step at a time, making decisions as you go, is how to embellish a canvas successfully.  Sure there will be things you aren't totally happy with, but each time you do this, you will become more confident and will learn to follow your instincts to stitch a canvas that is expressive of your personality and the vision you saw of the design when you bought it with your hard-earned cash.

You can do this if you think about the areas you want to emphasize or de-emphasize before you start stitching and if you are just brave enough to trust the voice in your head that says "I like this" or "I don't like that."

If you are a shop I hope you get to see Barcelona at the Leigh Designs booth.  You can judge for yourself how successfully I met the challenges of this canvas.  For everyone else, I'll post a photograph on June 25 of the finished Barcelona at the CH Stitch Guides blog.


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