No Flying Monkeys: Background Stitches Part Three

I'm sure by now you are a tad annoyed with me for going on and on about stitches I ended up not using.  Many stitchers don't want to make mistakes or have to rip out, which I can understand since none of us has enough leisure time to waste several evenings chasing a dead end.  But this is how you become a better stitcher, by making mistakes.  Think of it as shopping for a dress.  You have to try several on to see how they fit, if the color flatters you, etc.  After a while you know what brand names fit your body better, what colors make you look like a vampire and what colors enhance your eye and hair color, etc., but first you have to try clothes on to learn these things. It's the same with needlepoint.  Practice makes you better and ripping out makes you MUCH better.

Once I had the general size of the stitch I wanted in mind and had my eureka! moment with the X shapes I wanted to emphasize, the sort of stitch I wanted came to me and I graphed it, figuring out the size and shape and how the rows would interact with each other.  I choose a trellis stitch with four plies of the darkest blue silk making the framework of Xs and the medium shade of the blue silk filing the inner (roughly) oval shapes.    (I'm sure it's in one of my stitch books but I couldn't find it so created it from scratch which I'd do for the stitch guide anyway.)  I call it Xs and Ovals.  Here's the diagram.

I did have to lay my stitches pretty carefully and my silk doesn't cover 100% but since I like that look, I am happy.  If you are a full coverage babe, switch to another type of thread on 13 count or up the number of plies to 6.

Here's what the footstool looks like.

I missed some stitches along the fingers and have to figure out what some areas look blotchy in the photo on the left side (photos are your best friends when it comes to finding problem areas you don't notice in person), plus I need to add some darker silk outlining I missed on the right above the glass, but basically the footstool is done.  Notice that the basting thread is still in position.  I won't take that out until I start on the wall stitches.  The Plan at this point is to turn the canvas upside down and work the wall from the footstool down toward the lettering.

But first I need to work on the martini glass.  Stay tuned for more fun with that next week....

Remember, I am collecting the links as I blog stitch this Point of It All Designs piece and posting them in a tab on the CH Stitch Guides blog. You can catch up on what you missed by going there--just click on the flying carpet photo to magically be transported to my other blog and then back again.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright May 2, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.