Blue Russian: Finishing Up

I've been stitching background on Blue Russian this week, trying to get that finished so I can get him off to the finisher.  The final touch will be to stitch one row of tent stitches all around the outside edge to aid in finishing. You may or may not want to do this as different finishers and different styles of finishing have different requirements.  Always ask the finisher before you send off your masterpiece what their requirements are.

I started adding my tent stitch outline at the bottom under the border with a row of silver tent stitches.  It looked so nice and added so much to the border, that I decided to add that to the stitch guide.  I put in a second row of silver for finishing so that the first row will show a bit and add to the look of the border.  So if you are adding the snowflake border, make sure you add a row of silver tent stitches at the bottom.

The row of tent stitches finishes my Blue Russian stitching except for the background I must still complete.  I always look back when I finish a piece, trying to think what I would do differently or better.  I would really have liked to have had silver star sequins to scatter on the canvas (see photo below for my test of this idea) but I couldn't find the right size in the right color.  I could have created snowflakes out of beads but there are a lot of beads on the background already, which makes that much harder.  I abandoned this idea.

Testing Sequins

If I had it to stitch all over again, I might try stitching a flame outline in the lantern before covering the area with Water N Ice.  I also had the idea to create eyes with small Swarovski blue crystal sequins but I couldn't make that work with the Water N Ice I stitched his face with.  However, it might work nicely for another Santa with a silk tent stitched face.  Padding the top of his staff a lot might have made the ermine stitching easier but since I was blog-stitching this piece, I couldn't go back and change what I had done.   Otherwise I am pretty satisfied with how Blue Russian turned out.

I like doing unusual things on pieces, particularly since I am stitching this in public. (Yes, I'm a showoff!)  So using Water N Ice for the face, Or Nue' for the snowflake robe and glow-in-the-dark white Petite Silk Lame Braid in many parts of the design made me happy.  I have to credit 3 Kittens for the idea of a bottom border. I have not seen theirs yet but I thought it was a very nice touch when I heard they planned one.   Once I worked out how to space the snowflakes in an irregularly spaced area, I was very happy with the bottom border.  I probably would use 1/16 inch Kreinik silver ribbon for the silver parts of the bottom border next time.  The size 4 fine braid is a little too thin.

By the way, Vicky DeAngelis is working away on her Holly Hills Santa.  Keep an eye on her blog for more stitching fun with Russian Santas!
http://mostlyneedlepoint.com/leighs-russian-santa/

Now I need to continue stitching background and outlining it with tent stitches.  See you next week when I should have a finished photo!

Questions? Email me at chillyhollow @ hotmail.com and I'll get back to you by the next day.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright March 14, 2014 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.