Ch'ing Under Mats

Yesterday I picked up a standard double mat at the crafts emporium and fixed Ch'ing up for his trip to Leigh Designs.  Isn't he handsome?  The background shimmer you see is from a piece of gold lame fabric placed behind him.  I hope you can see how magnificent he is for such a little dragon (only 4 inches in diameter).  He will be mailed off next week, assuming I can find a good shipping box today or Monday.  By the way, his outer mat is dark navy.  I turned it turquoise by adjusting the shine from the gold lame so you could see the design well.)

Didn't finish my Cape Cod Dogs border last night (rats).  I took time to start wrapping the pet guardian angels in tissue paper and putting pairs of them into plastic bags, just in case there is water present on their journey to the ANG Auction.  By the time I sat down in the comfy chair, I was too tired to get a lot of stitching done.  I do want to finish it before working some more on the barkcloth look of the South Seas Fiji ornament, however.  

Wish me luck! 

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Playing With Fire-- Ch'ing the Chinese Red Dragon

Last night I finished the stitching on my Leigh dragon ornament by stem stitching the fire he breathes. This took a while because I used rows of very thin metallics in orange, gold and red, working from the right side of the ribbon of fire to the left. The left edge of the fire was painted red but I put orange there on the outside edge just to make the background distinct from the flame. Occasionally I put a gold stitch on top of the red ones or an orange stitch on the gold to add a little depth to the colors.

I used Bijoux 414 (the same thin red metallic I used to tie down the silk that outlines the background squares), orange Treasure Braid #TR47 (4-strand), and gold Acentuate #23 for the fire the dragon breathes. These are all very thin metallic threads around the size of Kreinik's blending filament. It took a while to create the flames but the stem stitch is very easy. You can also cover up a bare patch easily if you didn't pack the stem stitches tightly enough as you worked.









I like how he looks a lot but I do have to say that the photographs don't do him justice. Ch'ing will go to Leigh Designs to serve as a model and there will be a stitch guide available later but I don't have the details on that yet.

I'm going to add another smaller piece to my stitching rotation now. I choose another Dynasty Ornament from Leigh, this time Fiji (the one with the palm tree on the beach) from the South Seas Dynasty series. It's on my favorite sea green canvas and is a lovely design very reminescent of photographs I see at work all the time. Photographers can't resist a beach with a palm tree leaning out toward the incoming waves. Well, who can? Not me for sure!
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp825x.html

I'll continue working the border on Cape Cod Dogs. Right now three of the four sides are finished. I won't do the corners of the border until later but I hope to finish the basketweave black background and the red letters on the border this week and move on to something more interesting.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Dragon's Head

This week I've been stitching Ch'ing the Chinese dragon's head. It hasn't taken me very long (the head itself is not much longer than my thumb) but I needed a series of photographs to explain how I'm stitching him. The first photo above is a close up of Ch'ing's face. The eyebrows are stitched, using my dark red/brown Soie d'Alger #9197 silk which is what was used for the dividing lines on the checkerboard background, in packed stem stitched to match the arches above his eyes. You also see padding over his nose, above his mouth, and in the red patches along his cheek and above his head. I used a strand of red silk perle for the padding. Then Pat made a chance remark in Blog's comments that she'd heard Very Velvet was great for padding.


A light bulb went off over my head, I ripped out the silk perle padding and replaced it with red Very Velvet. This Rainbow Gallery thread is great when you need to have stitches that look like a velvet coat and it comes in two sizes--regular and Petite Very Velvet. Since I wanted the maximum loft, I used the larger regular Very Velvet size. In the photo above you see the padding in place and that I've started to wrap the nose padding with four strands of red silk (Splendor #S820). Doing straight stitches over the padding gives the nose ridge definition.


The next picture above shows the padding covered by the red Splendor silk in all the areas. The silk was carefully laid with a laying tool to keep it as smooth as possible. What you can't see well is that I've tent stitched the inside of the dragon's mouth. The red in his mouth is more of my Splendor (3 plies this time), the gold is some of the regular gold Treasure Braid (8 strand) #TR83 used on the ornament hanger metallic top, and the black is Kreinik #005 in size #8 braid.

The dragon's eyes and the white areas to each side of his mouth are stitched in Gloriana silk floss #190 Winter White. The eyes were done in 4 plies of this lovely silk, and once I had the straight stitches over the whites of his eyes, I did them again right on top of the first straight stitches. Since the whites of the dragon's eyes are a small area, I didn't pad them before putting in the straight stitches. The white mouth areas are tent stitches, again in 4 plies. Once I finished stitching the white areas, I filled the red eyes themselves with red beads, using Mill Hill Glass Seed Beads in color #02103. I finished the eyes by adding a gold bead in the center from my Sundance gold beads used on the gold scales, but I wouldn't do this again. Somehow the gold bead doesn't show up against the shine of the red ones. Color magic will sometimes make things invisible that should be visible.


This photo shows the black head of the dragon underway. I used packed stem stitch for the head and whiskers, using Kreinik's #005 black in three sizes, depending on the area I was working on. The head itself was done in the largest size, #16 braid. Once I had "colored in" the large areas of the head in #16, I switched to the smaller #8 fine braid to do narrower areas like above the eyebrows or the tips of the black fins. In a few cases at the very tips of the whiskers I switched sizes again, going down in size to #4 very fine braid. Once an area was stem stitched with the black Kreinik, I'd check to see if I needed to add a stitch or two on the top. When doing stem or outline stitch with a metallic thread, you will find areas that look a bit skimpy that need another stitch on top. Or you may find your thread isn't exactly positioned where you want it and you have to couch the thread into a slightly different position with a tiny stitch done in the #4 very fine braid.


The close up above shows the black fins on the dragon's body partly stitched. Again, I started with the largest black Kreinik. I put stem stitches in the large areas as you see, then went back later and added more stem stitches with my smaller #8 fine braid to fill out the tips of the curves and put a bit more thread in skimpy areas. This is not hard to do. Think of it as shading a coloring book with a pencil. Just fill in the area with your color using stem stitches instead of a Crayon!


This final photo is of Ch'ing to date. I've not finished the spine fins (the close up above comes from this photo) but this will give you a sense of what I'm doing. You can see in this photo and in the closeup that I went around the outside perimeter of the design with 1-2 tent stitches, using the main red silk (Soie d’ Alger #2925) from the checkerboard background, to make the edge smooth. Note that I did not use red silk for the outside tent stitches in the area of the body. I used my vintage gold Petite Treasure Ribbon #PR30 there as I thought red stitches outside that area would look odd.

This weekend I hope to tackle the fire the dragon is breathing. Once I finish stitching that area, Ch'ing will be complete!

In other news, I've finished three sides of the tent stitched border background on Cape Cod Dogs. I've also done the red letters in those three sides in cross stitches. As I work that piece I am thinking about what stitches and threads to use in other areas. If you look at the photo on the left you'll see the border corners have shells and some coral or seaweed as decoration. I'm going to wait to work on those as I will probably use the same threads there that will be used in those colors in the main design. Since I've not decided what threads go in the center yet, I'll wait to do the corners.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Ring Attached to Canvas (with Blackwork and Painted Canvas Lessons)

Last night I attached my ring to the top of my metallic ornament hanger. All I did was couch it down with my vintage gold Treasure Ribbon, being careful to cover the gold paint on the canvas with my stitches and by positioning the ring itself carefully. If I was going to finish this piece as an ornament, I wouldn't attach the ring at all. I'd wait until finishing and have the ring sticking out of the top of the finished ornament for hanging but since I plan to have this framed, I wanted to do it this way. There is no one "right" way to stitch things like this. You do what works for you.

In the category of NP news, Old Wold Designs in CA is going to do a introductory class to painting your own canvas. Since a lot of folks are interested in this topic, check out the class and see if it fits your schedule if you live in the area. The wisteria window design is very pretty!
http://www.oldworlddesigns.com/classes.html

Tanja Berlin has added two new blackwork kits to her website. There are two pages of designs as one set is intended as an introduction to blackwork specifically for those used to doing cross stitch. The other page has more advanced designs. Tanja does beautiful work so even if you don't want to stitch blackwork, you can admire what she has created.
http://www.berlinembroidery.com/whatsnew.htm#relaxation

http://www.berlinembroidery.com/blackwork.htm#pheasants


Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Ring-Topped Dragon

Ch'ing has a metal ornament hanger top now! Last night I choose two other golds that look good with the vintage gold-colored Treasure Ribbon I used to outline the scales of our Chinese red dragon, then used long tent stitches to do vertical lines of various colors on the hanger top. I worked top down on row one, then bottom up on row two, etc., starting with a regular tent stitch followed by a row of elongated tent stitches over two threads instead of the normal one. The last stitch in each row was a regular tent stitch. Each row is a different shade of gold.

For the golds I used Treasure Braid TR83 for the regular gold (in 8 strand size--this thread comes in 4 strands, 8 strands or 16 strands so you can put it on any canvas count from congress cloth to 13-14 count); Treasure Braid TR81 (8 strand size) for the yellow gold; and Petite Treasure Ribbon in PR30 for the dark vintage gold. I left the ends of each gold thread on top of the canvas so you could compare the various shades of gold. The vintage gold and the yellow gold are on the left side and the regular gold on the right.

In the photo you see the finished ornament top and the ring that goes on top in its little package that came with the canvas. I think you are supposed to put the looped end on the back side of your canvas and thread the open end through a hole to the front, then come back down on the other side of the metal ornament top, go back through a hole there and then fasten the open end into the loop to close it. If you then tied down the top of the loop with a couched stitch, it would stay in position. I was a bit too tired to tackle this last night, so I put the canvas away and added a little more red lettering to the endless boring border of Cape Cod Dogs instead. I am close to half done with the border. Hopefully I will finish it before Ch'ing is completely done.

Tonight I'll attach the ring and continue work on the dragon's head. I've started the head but decided it would be better to talk about the dragon's head and fins in logical order, not in the order I stitched them.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Head of a Dragon, Body of a Snake

Last night was spent basketweaving the black border around Cape Cod Dogs but I finished the body of Ch'ing the red dragon from Leigh before starting Even More Basketweave and want to show this part of the design off.

The sinuous snake-like body of the dragon has red, orange and yellow scales outlined with gold. Some of the gold areas widen to become gold scales. I didn't want to lose the lovely shading and I didn't want to tent stitch the whole body, either, so it took me some time to come up with an idea that would give me the slightly wet look of snakeskin. Here in CH we get to inpect snakes fairly often (mostly the very small and very pretty tree snakes who live around us and who sport a gold ring around their necks) and all their bodies look shiny and wet. I wanted this look for Ch'ing.

I first stitched the gold lines in tent stitches using Petite Treasure Ribbon from Rainbow Gallery. This is a shiny metallic ribbon, thinner and narrower than ribbon floss, that is easy to use. Like all ribbon threads, it does twist and turn as you stitch with it but since the twists expose the vintage gold-with-black color of PR30, I didn't use a laying tool as I stitched. Please note that Treasure Ribbon comes in two widths--Petite and plain Treasure Ribbon. I used the Petite as this is an 18 count canvas. If you are curious about Petite and regular Treasure Ribbon, look at the Rainbow Gallery website.
http://www.rainbowgallery.com/colorcards.cfm

Remember I said that some of the gold lines widened to produce gold scales? When I got to these areas, I only stitched the outside edge. I left the centers unstitched. When all the gold outlines and the red or orange or yellow scales were stitched completely, I added tiny gold faceted beads from Sundance Designs to the center of the gold scales. My tube isn't labeled, but the gold shade of the beads and of the Petite Treasure Braid is similar. Matching the color is more important than using the same brand of beads.

Adding the beads were the last step. The next to last step is filing in the orange and red and yellow scales with long diagonal stitches using three colors of Water N Ice--red WT5, orange WT4 and yellow WT3. Water N Ice is a slightly transparent ribbon thread. It looks like strips of heavy Saran wrap. To see more colors, go to the Rainbow Gallery page listed above. The smaller photo on the right shows some gold outlining, a few of the red scales stitched and a cluster of gold beads in the center of a gold scale.

In most cases I used slanting diagonal stitches to fill in. I worked the two sides of each mostly oval shape first, then put a long stitch in the middle overlapping the sides slightly. In this case, I did use a laying tool to keep the thread from twisting. The look is wet and slick, just like a real reptile.

I did lose some of the beautiful shading by topping it with this thread but I did see changes in some of the orange scales especially depening on how dark the orange paint underneath was. In a few cases I mixed orange and yellow thread in one scale where the paint clearly used both colors. I am happy with the look which gives Ch'ing the Manchu dragon a solid body that stands out from the checkerboard background.

The next challenge will be to heavily pad the dragon's head so that is even more prominent but before I work on that area I'm going to stitch the metallic hanger on top of the ornament.


Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

The Dragon's Grid

Now that all the background Scotch Stitches are in place, it is time to deal with the grid lines that separate each square in the checkerboard. I used one ply of the very dark red/brown Soie d’Alger #2925 to lay long stitches along the grid lines. I did all the vertical stitches first. Note that each grid line was painted on top of a ridge, not in a ditch, but my thread lies in a ditch. Because I used just one ply of my very dark reddish brown silk, some of the paint will show. This gives extra dimension to the grid. I just had to make sure I always used the hole to the right (or left--doesn’t matter, just be consistent) of the painted line.

Once the vertical lines were covered, I did the horizontal ones. Again, I had to make sure I always used the hole above or below the painted line. Once both vertical and horizontal lines were laid, I couch them down at the corners of each grid using one strand of red metallic Bijoux #414 in a tiny cross stitch. (Bijoux is a thin metallic thread similar to but less shiny than Accentuate.) This adds a bit more subtle sparkle and keeps the long lengths of thread from sticking up and snagging something.

I thought about using the red Hi-Lights for the tie down XSs but decided that it might be a little too heavy a thread. Besides, the Bijoux gives an even subtler shine than the Hi-Lights and I think it looks nice in the background.

The dragon's body is next on the list. I've already pulled out my stash of Water N Ice....

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Ch'ing Dynasty Ornament

I've always liked Asian-themed painted canvases and Leigh Designs is one of my favorites so her Ch'ing dragon ornament was a Must Buy for me. A little research showed me that the Ch'ing are the dynasty of emperors we in the West call the Manchu. The dragon was their symbol. The emperor was the son of a red dragon, after all! You can read a bit more about the Ch'ing dragon robe symbolism here.
http://www.artsmia.org/world-myths/viewallart/dragon_background.html

As I said yesterday, this piece is roughly 4 inches in diameter on 18 count red canvas. The dragon, who has red, yellow and orange scales edged in gold, has black fins and whiskers. He breathes fire on a background of red squares separated by a reddish brown grid. He has white on his eyes and mouth as an accent against all the red and black which dominate this canvas.

As is my practice, my first step was to make a color xerox of the design. Then I put the canvas away where I couldn't see it and sketched what I remembered of the pattern. That's also something I regularly do. A sketch tells me what I remember about a design. What I remember is what is important to me and what I want to emphasize in a design. I sketched the dragon's bending body, the black fins and whiskers around the open mouth and staring eyes, the stream of fire he's breathing and the checkerboard background. (And no, I'm not posting a photo of my sketch--no need to have everyone laughing at my art skills!) This is a pretty simple canvas and I remembered most of it, so I had to go to my fallback position to decide what to stitch and how and in what order. The dragon is against a background of a grid. This might be a decorative pattern in clothing if the dragon is embroidered, or perhaps a screen on a wall if the dragon is roaming the emperor's palace. At any rate, the background is definitely behind the dragon. So that's the place to start stitching! I prefer working from the background towards the front when possible. It just seems logical to me. However, there are times when you want to do the background last. It all depends on the canvas and the stitches and colors and threads you are using. As SharonG says, the only rule is that the thread goes through the eye of the needle!

In the photo above you see I've stitched some of the background squares. I decided to use a simple Scotch Stitch for each of them. Scotch Stitches are a perfect fit for the space and leave the grid lines uncovered.
http://www.needlepoint.org/StitchOfTheMonth/98-06.php

I chose a deep red Hi-Lights (H614 Dark Red) for these stitches. Hi-Lights is a synthetic metallic thread wound around a shiny nylon perle type thread. My H614 is a red metallic wound around the red nylon core. It is a bit like blending filament but more rounded and heavier. Here's Rainbow Gallery's tips for working with Hi-Lights.
http://www.rainbowgallery.com/JaysTips.html#15C

Here are all the colors available in Hi-Lights.
http://www.rainbowgallery.com/detail.cfm?ID=669

In my experience you need to use a short length of Hi-Lights because the canvas holes fray it slightly each time you take a stitch. It is very thin and when I did a few Scotch Stitches, I realized that one strand wasn't covering. So I simply went back and did a second Scotch Stitch right on top of the first, but oriented the other way. Look back at the diagram of the Scotch Stitch and you'll see that the slants can run from the Southwest to the Northeast or they can be oriented from the NW to the SE. I ended up with my Scotch Stitches going SW to NE in the bottom layer and then running NW to SE on the top layer. You do have to be careful with your Scotch Stitches that they are all slanting the same direction. One that is going the wrong way will stand out!

I was happy how the little cluster of Scotch Stitches looked, but I was working from a partial card of Hi-Lights. I started to worry that I wouldn't have enough thread to cover the entire background and that all that glitter was Too Much. Dither, dither, dither.... Then the light bulb went off over my head.

See how the Scotch Stitches I've done above are in a rough C shape? That's deliberate. My solution to the double issue of Too Much Glitter and Not Enough Thread was to use the red Hi-Lights #H614 for just highlights, not the entire background. I'd pulled two skeins of Soie d'Alger silk out of my stash because they were the right reds and decided I would use the lighter shade (2925) for the rest of my background Scotch Stitches. Soie d'Alger is a silk floss and I know how silk shines and catches the light. If I carefully laid my Scotch Stitches done in this thread and alternated the direction of how they were oriented on each diagonal row, I'd add more shine and light direction interest to the piece without overwhelming it with metallics. This is the background, after all. One doesn't want the background fancier than the foreground, just like one doesn't want a bridesmaid in a prettier gown than the bride's!

So I spent a lot of time laying two plies of my deep red Soie d'Alger in Scotch Stitches, working diagonally a row at a time to make sure that each square was oriented correctly in relation to its neighbors. Here you see the canvas with all the Scotch Stitches finished.


The moral of all my problems I listed above is that figuring out what to do when your thread doesn't cover or when you think you'll run out of thread will lead you to interesting and creative ways of dealing with your current canvas. In my experience, problems make me the most creative with my needlepoint and that's when things turn out best. Next time I'll talk about the final two steps for stitching the background.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Ok, Pull Up Your Chairs--I'm Starting Something New

I've been stitching on two new projects for a week now but there has been so much else to talk about (new items from the Columbus trade show, helping MNS decide about the Nutcracker Santa, pet guardian angels arriving in the mail, etc.) that I haven't mentioned them yet. Now's the time.

My friend Pat has been doing a project rotation on her Needleartnut blog and it has worked splendidly. I decided I would rotate projects, too, and see how I like it. Normally I have a large and a small project going and switch between them occasionally but I've found that I tend to concentrate on one and finish it, then go back to the other. This time I'm really going to try to rotate projects. I'm going to start out with a small project and a large one and when the little one is done, I'm switching to a second large project. Enough of the ornaments for now! After the Byzantine icons, the wisteria teapot and six pet guardian angels, I am burned out on small projects. And stitching two large ones means I won't have to do any finishing--HURRAH!

You've already seen the photos of the new bare naked canvases on the left side of Blog. I'm stitching a red dragon ornament from Leigh Designs' Chinese Dynasty series. This is on 18 count red canvas and is around 4 inches in diameter (although it is a bit more than 4 inches tall) if you don't count the metallic ornament hanger on top. Leigh has a lot of Dynasty ornaments, all named after various kings or royal families from various cultures. Here are the other Chinese Dynasty designs. If you are curious about other Dynasty designs from other countries, click on Image Library and browse.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp821x.html


My other canvas in the current rotation is a reproduction of an Elizabeth Mumford oil painting called Cape Cod Dogs. My canvas is 8 inches square on 18 count canvas. It is not an exact match to the original painting in that there is no ferry visible next to the lighthouse in the window view. This design is licensed by Needlepoint of Back Bay. I know they reproduce other Elizabeth Mumford paintings but I am not sure which ones since they are not shown on the NP of Back Bay website.
http://www.needlepointofbackbay.com/canvas-lines.htm

The original Cape Cod Dogs canvas can be seen here. Look at the window and you'll see my NP version doesn't have the boat.
http://www.elizabethmumford.com/images/portfolio/20.jpg

The plan --subject to change at any time according to my whims-- is to stitch Ch'ing the dragon ornament alternately with tent stitching the black background border on Cape Cod Dogs. There's a lot of border to do, perfect for stitching when I am tired at night. Once Ch'ing is done, I am going to start working on other parts of Cape Cod Dogs and add another large, unnammed project to my rotation.

Two large projects at once?! Tell me I'm not insane!

I'll leave you by reciting the saying on the Cape Cod Dogs border in case you can't read it--

Cape Cod Dogs
they don't chase cars
they like to pick up
girls in bars!

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow