Santa Faces (Not Blue Russian)

I promised when I started blog-stitching the Northern Light Santa that I would talk about things that would work on other Russian Santas in the series. So this morning I want to talk about faces a little more, especially faces for the other three Santas in this series.  Take a careful look at the faces of all the series.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp833x.html

The Holly Hills and Forever Green Santas face the viewer directly.  The Birdland Santa's face is turned slightly, but only slightly.  This makes all three good candidates for brick stitch over two faces, although if it were me, I'd do this on Birdland Santa because his face is larger.  You do need some space for the Over Two length, after all.  If you find brick stitches too large, basketweave is the way to go for these Santas except for their eyebrows and the black eyeliner area.  That probably should be done with one ply of a thread in stem stitches or perhaps a few straight stitches on top of the area after the basketweave is done.  I always use silk flosses when I can for faces but silk perle is just as nice and of course cotton flosses and perles are almost as good, just without the shine that silk gives a face.

Here is a diagram of Brick Stitch Over Two.  This is one of my favorite ways to attach beads so the diagram shows beads as well as just the plain Brick Stitch Over Two.  A bonus!

Next Monday I will be ready to talk background for my Blue Russian.   Hopefully folks will have their Santas by now and can start stitching faces and assembling threads for the rest of their canvas.


Questions?  Email me at chillyhollow@hotmail.com and I'll get back to you within a day or so.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
@ Copyright 2013 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.