Baroque Silk in Overdyes

Pocket Full of Stitches shows off the lovely colors of the new overdyed Baroque Silk which came out at the Dallas show.
http://pocketfullofstitches.blogspot.com/2015/10/thread.html

If you aren't familiar with this lovely silk, it comes from Pure Palette at Dream House Ventures.  Its plyable for 18 count or you can use all three plies in one strand for 13-14 count canvases.  The colors are beautiful and I like the feel of this pretty silk.  If you ply it, sometimes you'll find color variation even in the solid colors but this can be used to great effect for a "marbled" look in a border or perhaps a stone floor or in hair for highlights.
http://www.needlepointsltd.com/baroquesilk.html

http://www.dreamhouseventures.com/shop/the-pure-palette/baroque-silk-.htm

Ridgewood shows off the regular colors as part of a trunk show of this thread.
http://ridgewoodneedlepoint.blogspot.com/2015/10/baroque-silk-thread-trunk-show-continues.html

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright October 28, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Studying The Arctic Circle

Janet Moyer's Arctic Circle

I have a special treat this morning.  Dr. Janet Moyer just finished a canvas and sent me photographs and a description of how she stitched it. The canvas is Charley Harper's Arctic Circle.  Here is the bare canvas (link below).  Pretty plain, isn't it?  Not to Dr. Moyer!
http://www.astitch-above.com/ARCTIC-CIRCLE.html

Janet was raised in Alaska and was greatly influenced by the land, the indigenous cultures and the people who live in the 50th state. She is also very fond of musk oxen and since she knows they protect their young by standing close together in a circle with the calves in the middle, she thought Charley Harper got it right and she had to stitch this.  However, she looked at the piece for months before she picked up a needle.  She understood that this Arctic landscape with wolves, ice floes, musk oxen, glaciers and lots of snow, blue skies and open water would require different different shades of white and blue metallics due to the glint of sunlight on ice and snow so a lot of planning was needed.

Musk Oxen and Iceberg Closeups

Janet started with the Musk Oxen, trying a variety of threads to get their color exactly right.  She wanted to convey their power and how grounded in they are in a place and time foreign to us  (they are very old creatures compared to most around us now).  Janet used almost all metallics on this piece except for the musk oxen which were stitched with DMC and Splendor, but even their horns have gold metallic on top of the Petite Very Velvet that makes up the horns.  Unless you have lived in a place with a lot of snow and know just what bright sun does to snow and ice, all this metallic thread will seem an odd choice.   It also makes it hard to photograph this piece since cameras don't see sparkle and shine.  Even Janet, who is an award winning photographer, had trouble.

The large ice berg just to the right of the row of musk oxen is done with Kreinik's #16 braid in color 032 in the first step of Double Stitch, with Sundance crystal hex beads inserted at random among the empty spaces left by omitting the second part of Double Stitch.  Janet says about Double Stitch with beads:  "I wanted a little more sparkle so decided on random hex beads. I knew if I put hex beads in all the spaces they would not only take over the ice bergs but also the entire piece. Since most of the stitching was done with small stitches I had to find a balance between large and small."

Wolves, Blue Snow and Musk Oxen Hooves

The wolves are done in white Fuzzy Stuff, stitched in random long stitches done in layers and then stroked with a fingernail to enhance the fuzzy look.  The blue snow under the Musk Oxen's Petite Very Velvet hooves is Kreinik #12 braid (color 094) half laid horizontally, every other space.  Then Janet came back and filled in vertically.

Water, Clouds, Sky and Ice Floes

The sky is done with High Cotton blended with Accentuate in a running stitch over 3 and then over 5 alternating. The puffy clouds are shirred Frosty Rays Plus Janet held the inner metallic thread while sliding the outer thread to the puffiness she wanted. Then the cloud thread was couched down here and there with the inner metallic thread.

The dark blue water is T stitch using a Kreinik metallic that is darker than the painted blue water. The small ice floes in the water are stitched in brick stitch using the same 032 Kreinik as the large ice bergs and with Neon Rays Plus. The brick stitch changes direction on different floes to add tension to the design.

Framed

The piece is double matted with a non-shiny aluminum frame with light random etching on it. This photo gives you some idea of the sparkles when the light hits it. This is a perfect love letter to Janet’s native State. It now hangs in her “Alaska room” with various Eskimo masks and other Alaskan artwork.

Charley Harper's work is distributed by Treglown Designs, which is authorized by his estate to reproduce his designs on needlepoint canvas. Many, many thanks to Janet for sharing this amazing tribute to Alaska with us!

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.

Two Birds in Beads (Day of the Dead)

Pocito Dove Underway

I've not mentioned Belleza, my Day of the Dead lady from Manual Salas/Tapestry Fair much this last week because I have been so busy with Real Life chores, I've not accomplished much. However, I did manage to bead both my birds.  Janet is working Pocito and also choose to bead her birds (Sheena's not at this point yet as she is working on her Pocito's face).  I thought you might like to see how differently my birds and Janet's turned out, even though they are painted in an almost identical manner.  The two Day of the Dead ladies are pictured on the left side of Blog for your reference.

Pocito's Right Dove Finished

Pocito (green background) has white doves outlined in silver.  Janet beaded them with three colors of round beads: orange beads on the beak, white pearl and silver beads on the rest of the bird.  Janet's orange and white pearl beads are size 14 from Sundance while the silver beads are size 15 from The Shepherdess Bead Store in San Diego.  She wanted all round beads but could not find silver beads in size 14 so she used the slightly smaller size 15 ones.  Janet pointed out that her beak is painted yellow and orange but she decided her canvas is already so colorful that using two colors in the tiny beak would be distracting. So her beak is solid orange.

Belleza's Glittering Crow with Yellow Eye

Belleza (purple background) has black crows outlined in silver.  I also used size 14 beads from Sundance but I used hex beads in four colors:  black, silver lined crystals, orange and peach-yellow.  My beak has both yellow and orange shades which is how it was painted.  I also put a yellow-peach bead in one bird's eye and used an orange bead for the other crow's eye.  Janet used a black stitch for her dove eye.

Belleza's Orange Eyed Crow

My birds are much harder edged than Janet's romantic little doves.  I don't think it is just the colors than make my birds crows--I think it is also the glitter that hex beads give.  Janet used round beads that are softer and that have a pearl "glow" instead of the glint that hex beads give when they reflect light.  The moral of all this is that your choice of bead type and size are as important as the color.  We both used beads of the same type (round or hex) and in the same size as much as possible.

Hope this gives you some ideas the next time you want to put beads on a needlepoint canvas.  If you want to add romance and softness, look for round beads.  If you need more glitter and shine, hex beads are the way to go.

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

Enter Brenda Hart, Girl Genius

Do you remember when I was working on the Joan Thomasson Wizard Santa for Christmas that I used some of the new Baroque Silk for the silver beard and for the black felt slippers Santa wore? Baroque Silk is a lightly twisted perle silk thread, suitable for 13 count canvas as is, but you can also untwist the plies into three sections and use 1-2 of them on 18 count. Which is what I did on the Wizard Santa. Here are good photos of the colors available for this thread.
http://www.needlestack.com/WebStore/Thread/TPP_BaroqueSilk.html

Barbara Bergstein's blog has photos of the red Baroque Silk she is using on her tropical fish project. The second photo shows the red Baroque Silk in its tiny skein and the third and fourth are closeups of Barbara holding the entire strand and then the separated plies ready to use on 18 count.
http://createneedlepoint.typepad.com/create_needlepoint/2009/03/tropical-fish.html

My conclusion when I stitched the Wizard Santa using Baroque Silk was that the grays were pretty but nothing different than any other thread for beards, and that the white bits that show up when you untwist the black ply make it not a good choice for 18 count canvas. I had to stitch over sections of the black Chinese slippers to hide the white bits. I suppose the thread is twisted and then dyed, so the dye doesn't penetrate the whole thread, giving a slightly shaded area or even a white streak when you use a ply or two of the whole thread on 18 count.

And there my opinion rested. Until Brenda Hart arrived, picked up Baroque Silk and worked her magic.

My friend Janet takes a regular class from Brenda Hart at Needle Nook of La Jolla. Janet's stitching a large piece and Brenda came up with a fabulous border for her design which Janet told me about. Janet raved about the stitch and thread Brenda told her to use and even sent me a skein in blue with a matching metallic to try it out with. The thread was --you guessed it!-- Baroque Silk.

I looked at my brand new skein of blue Baroque Silk, remembered that Brenda Hart wrote the stitch dictionaries I use all the time, thought about what a good stitcher Janet is, then took a deep breath and tried to copy what Brenda taught Janet on a sample of canvas. Luckily I had some of the black and gray Baroque Silk still I used last fall (it was borrowed from Pat, who is as big a threadaholic as I am) and tried all three colors in various combinations on my 18 count canvas in just the way Janet instructed.

This is what Janet said Brenda Hart told her to do--First, take a length of Baroque Silk apart into its three separate strands. Then carefully lay the crinkly strands in a long diagonal line of five separate stitches, not pulling the threads so tightly that the crinkles disappear. Follow this with five diagonal stitches in a matching color of metallic thread. Then repeat, alternating between the Baroque Silk and the metallic threads, for the entire border.

You get a marbled effect with the Baroque Silk, and the metallic contrasts with the matte silk beautifully. It is GORGEOUS. In the photo above you see my blue Baroque silk paired with a blue Sparkle Braid, some of my gray Baroque Silk with silver Kreinik stitched beside and on top of the gray stitches, and some of my black stitched in a long figured stitch next to black Kreinik in the same stitch slanting the other way. I also added a length of my blue Baroque Silk with one end unraveled and the other as it comes off the skein so you can see the difference.

Speaking of the black Baroque Silk, I should mention that this shows up fancy stitches beautifully if the stitches are long ones as in the test stitches I used. There is a lot of shine to it which will enable us to stitch fancy stitches in black and not lose the detail that normally vanishes when you stitch in black. The trick is to use long straight stitches to give the Baroque Silk room to reflect the light.

I was wrong about Baroque Silk. Use it in the right circumstances paired with its soul mate, metallics, and you have something really beautiful. Note that I discovered that on 18 count, you only need two of the three strands that make up one ply of Baroque Silk. Janet's piece is on 13 count, so she needed all three of her strands to cover.

Janet kindly sent me a closeup of her Baroque Silk & metallic border.


The color isn't true on this piece (I tinkered with the image to make it easier to see the stitches) but it shows what an elegant side border Baroque Silk mixed with metallic threads makes. This is Melissa Shirley's large large armadillo canvas. It is on 13 count so Janet used all three plies of the Baroque Silk to add a lavender section outside the wide bird-flower-tree branch border.

Many thanks to Janet Moyer for drawing this to my attention, forcing me to try it with threads she provided and sending a photo for you to see, and to Brenda Hart for graciously allowing me to reveal one of her tricks here.

Brenda, you are amazing!

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Janet's Beaded Sheep

Remember the Evil Sheep, the large and menacing Sheep Wizard stitched by Dr. Janet Moyer? Janet just shared a photo of a much smaller sheep canvas, this time from Ewe and Eye and she's agreed to let me show you the photo and will telll us about stitching it. You can see the unstitched canvas on the Ewe and Eye website here. Just click on Birds and Animals, then go to page 5. Janet's sheep is in the middle of the top row.
http://www.eweandeyeandfriends.com

Many thanks to Ewe and Eye for permission to show off their sheep and even more thanks to Janet for telling us about The Sheep and The Bead Adventure."

Now, here is Janet:
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The Problems and Saga of the Ears

I've stitched with a group of women, every Monday, at the Needlenook of La Jolla (NNLJ) for over ten years. We are very lucky to have all those threads to pick from and gorgeous, fun, or quirky canvases to buy. When my Shetland Sheepdogs began competitive sheep herding I started looking for sheep canvases. The first major sheep canvas I did was "The Evil Sheep," previously shown on Jane's blog. The owners of NNLJ manage to add to my sheep flock with some regularity. Hence, this piece from Ewe and Eye.

I usually stitch large pieces so this small canvas (5x5 inches) initially stumped me. So I asked the terrific needlepoint teacher Brenda Hart to look at it. She drew an eyelet stitch on a piece of paper. I tried it and loved it. Normally I don't start with a background stitch but this was wonderful! I used the light grey Splendor for the background, then the dark grey Splendor for the sheep's body. [NOTE: Janet listed her threads at the end of this message from her.]

I wanted the head to stick out from the body. Since I love to bead, beading was the choice. Next: ears. I blithely stitched one ear with beads and then filled in the inner ear with long stitches. I left the other ear to do later as I had to finish the sheep's body.

At this point everything looked, well, dull is the word. Aha, I went to my stash and found the star sequins. Perfect! No more dull. I placed them selectively on the background. They are a surprise to anyone viewing the canvas as they blend in so well that one does not see them until the canvas is moved slightly and the sequin catches the light. All of them may not show up in the picture.

I finished the body and most of the circles. Bijoux was backstitched on top of the T stitch body. So far, so good. The last circles were completed after the ears were finished.

Now it was time to finish the other ear. I COULDN'T FIND THE BEADS I'd used on the other ear. I went through my stash, asked my stitching friends if anyone had given me the steely grey beads. No luck. I contacted Mill Hill Beads, checked out all of Sundance Beads, went to Michael's store and checked their beads. NO LUCK.

I gave up and stitched the remaining ear, first in a matte black (no, too dense, too black). Then I tried shiny black (still too black) and decided I would have to make do with them. So I finished the ear and then removed the beads from the first ear. They looked like a translucent grey so back I went to all the bead sources. NO LUCK. I showed them to Pam Carnot, a stitching friend, and she smiled at me and said they were light green, not grey. When I stitched them onto the canvas I used a black beading thread which Pam said turned them to a hematite color!! Now you all know my secret: I am color weak (not color blind). That's one of the reasons I stitch with others. Good thing, hmmm? This was interesting to me, though: I have since ordered clear beads from Sundance Beads and I am going to experiment with different colored bead threads and see what I get. You might want to try it too.

The lawn/hill was done in basketweave to provide some relief to the eyes from all the texture of the background and the sheep. I stitched the leaves in a basketweave stitch but turned the leaves 90 degrees to do it, to add some subtle textural change. Then I stitched a skeletonized leaf stitch on top for a tiny bit of dimension but keeping it subtle for the POW of the overdyed pink thread, which I simply coiled and couched to hold it place. A double French knot was stitched in the center.

Brenda's great background stitch got me started. The rest of the stitches and any mistakes are mine. Now, on to the next sheep….

signing off in La La Land,

Janet

Materials and stitches for the Grey Sheep

Background: Splendor 976 (light grey); Stitch suggested by Brenda Hart, a type of eyelet.
Star sequins added to the background.

Sheep body: Splendor 967 (dark grey). Stitch used: the T stitch.

Face: Sundance beads, #282 (kind of a peachy color), size 14 Sundance Beads
Eyes: Sundance beads #457A (a bronze color), size 14 Sundance Beads
Ears: Sundance beads #306, size 14. Sundance Beads. Backstitched and used the doubled safety railroad split thread to anchor the beads. I filled in the inner ears with dark grey long stitches in inner ear. As we discussed the 306 beads are a light green. I put them on the canvas with black beading thread which turned the color to Hematite. Perfect for the ears!!

Circles on body and legs: Bioux # 484 Obsidian (has gold in it) backstitch on body. Single vertical tent stitch on legs, one under each other, etc.

Green lawn: Anchor floss 267; basket weave
Flower: Threadworkx Overdye floss, pink # 1101. Just wrapped floss in a circle then couched it with a single ply of the pink. Used a dab of Japanese glue to hold the ends down.
Green leaves: Anchor floss #254. Basket weave stitch. Then on top of basket weave I did a skeleton leaf stitch to give appearance of texture, without the weight."
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By the way, anyone who wants to see Evil Sheep can visit the Yahoo 360 blog and then look in the Tag Cloud on the left side of the page for the keywords Evil-Sheep. Click on that and you'll see the first sheep in Janet's herd.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow