Kandace Merric Online

I am very excited to tell you this morning that Kandace Merric, whose Pet Guardian angels were such a hit on Blog 4-5 years ago when we stitched them for the ANG Auction, has posted photographs of her work (most original designs featuring the Westies she works so hard to promote and protect) on the Facebook page for Needlepoint Nation.   I hope you can see these even if you don't have a FB account because Kandy's original work is amazing.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200171172546999.198471.1381993964&type=1

To see more versions of her Pet Guardian Angel series (featured in Needlepoint Plus magazine years ago) just type Pet Guardian Angels in the search box in the upper left hand corner of Blog.

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.

River Silks, Stitch Guides and Other Things

Duke Designs

Yesterday I managed more tent stitches on Cha's background.  I really need to surround her wings with background stitches before I continue the feathery stitches, so it has been a dull few days for Blog readers and myself.  However, I did manage to write a bit about River Silks stitch guides on the Stitch Guides Blog.

You'll have to head over there to read about the silk ribbon embroidery guides for painted canvases that they provide free for painted canvases from a huge range of designers.  By the way, the illustration for this blog posting is a photo of the marvelous silk ribbon embroidery piece I saw at Woodlawn and loved last March.  The canvas is from Keri Designs and was stitched entirely in River Silks ribbons by Lynn Krynicki Bayer.  It's a large piece, probably 3 feet tall and a foot wide, and marvelous in person.  Sadly, there isn't a stitch guide for it.  Perhaps River Silks will release one.  It's really beautiful and unusual.
http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com/2010/07/river-silks-ribbon-painted-canvas.html

Here is the Keri Designs website.  Green Bamboo is in the Eastern Collection if you are interested.
http://keridesigns.com/needlepoint.php

I'm half-way through writing a second article for Stitch Guides blog that I hope to have ready tomorrow morning.  Stay tuned!

On other news, if you love angels, you'll want to keep up with what Judy Harper is doing on her blog.  Judy's digging through her archives, looking at older angel designs she has done and creating new ones.  Start here and then just browse back a few pages.  Every time you see an angel photo, stop and read.  I'm particularly fond of the Art Nouveau angel (July 15, 2010) but you may find your own angel (the Iris Angel of April 18th is lovely) among Judy's photos.
http://fairy-crafts.blogspot.com/

Judy is doing all this work in preparation for creating new angel designs on painted canvas.  The Heavenly Angels currently available for sale are on her Elegant Whimsies website.
http://elegantwhimsies.com/joomla/
http://fairy-crafts.blogspot.com/

Of course some of us find masculine canvases more to our taste (or the tastes of those we stitch presents for).  If so, you'll love seeing the Planes, Trains and Automobiles canvases PFOS has to offer.  There are some real classics here!
http://pocketfullofstitches.blogspot.com/2010/07/planes-trains-and-automobiles.html



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

Tonight's the Night UPDATED AGAIN

FINAL UPDATE: Tonight's the ANG Auction at the annual Seminar in Milwaukee. The pet guardian angels sold for $500. Michele Winter is their new owner. Michele's in Texas. If you know her, go visit the angels. I'm sure she'll arrange a viewing for you. After all, they really have to be seen to be appreciated.

UPDATE: The ANG Auction co-chair Nancy Robertson kindly sent photos of the pet guardian angels on display for tonight's auction. They are on a large wreath and on a garland but all aren't visible in this photo. There are too many of them! Anyone who knows how the auction went please post in the Comments as I won't get word until tomorrow most likely. My husband gets the computer in the evening so I won't be able to check emails then.

Click on the photo of the magazine cover to see the slide show of all the pet guardian angels in the auction. Once I hear how things went, I'll let you know but it'll probably be tomorrow morning before I update this post.

I'm tent stitching on South Seas Fiji's black areas on the right side of the ornament but skipped the H-Q rows on Glittering Kimono last night. Bad Jane!

I ran out of time.

Yes, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

By the way, here's the slide show of all the Pet Guardian Angels sold to raise money for ANG at the Milwaukee 2009 Auction.

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

The Final Two Pet Guardian Angels

The last two pet guardian angels arrived in Chilly Hollow today and were photographed, then wrapped up and put in the box that will deliver them all to the ANG Auction Chairman for the fall auction in Milwaukee.

The last ones are very special. They are two originals stitched by Kandace Merric, the designer of the original set who not only kindly gave permission for me to share the out-of-print instructions with stitchers for the ANG fund raiser, but who out of the blue volunteered to stitch two completely new angels to be sold at auction also. You'll notice that these two angels have blue Medici wool backgrounds like the original six and that they are finished with blue silk moire backgrounds instead of the felt the other Auction angels wear on the back. I want them to stand out from the angels stitched by volunteers so that the lucky auction winner knows these are the originals!

Above is the 20th Century pet guardian angel, a sugar glider dressed in Art Deco robes. Here is a second photo of her before finishing. The color is a little more true and more details are visible. Doesn't she have the sweetest face?!

This is the 21st Century Gecko pet guardian angel, dressed in stitches and threads meant to evoke space and the metal and plastic outfits astronauts wear. I wish you could see the delicate silver stars and see the gentle sparkle of the ecru trim, standup collar and fancy sleeve decoration on this angel. It is beautifully stitched. In the background you see the sugar glider's back side, just to give you a flavor of how beautifully finished these two pet guardian angels are.

Here is a photo of the gecko before finishing, which shows off the stars a bit better.

Aren't these amazing? If you would like to see all the pet guardian angels destined for the auction, click on the photo of Needlepoint Plus magazine on the left. The original set are also shown. I can't thank Kandace Merric enough for her support for this project. When I mail off the angels tomorrow I will be a bit sad to see them go but they are going to raise funds for ANG and show off the dedication and stitching skills of the volunteers who made them and the wonderful designs that Kandy created for our stitching pleasure.

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

Beer and Cookie

This weekend I made Nancy's Tudor Dog (Schnauzer) up into an ornament. Cookie is in the photo above. Isn't she pretty? You probably can't see the subtle pink and blue overdye color in the metallic threads but it adds a great deal to the delicate look of her clothing. She's a handsome dog!

There are two more pet guardian angels on the way to me. Kandace Merric has designed two new angels, one for the 20th Century and one for the 21st. I can't wait to see them!

While I wait I'm still stitching beer bottles. I've started adding other fibers to the metallics I started with. See the yellow bottle on the top row? Its label is stitched in yellow silk so that it looks a bit duller than the glass bottle. I've also added vertical and horizontal straight stitches across the tent stitches on some bottles, like the big black and blue bottle to the right of the yellow bottle. It has tent stitches in medium blue metallic topped by long horizontal stitches in navy blue metallic. Since I used only two plies of my Bijoux and Accentuate, the painted area shows a bit, giving this bottle some real depth. See the glass sitting on the bar near the dog's paw? I stitched that with long stitches in Water n Ice (the original clear color). Does it look like glass to you?

More later. I want to get back to South Seas Fiji.

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

Even More Pet Guardian Angels Arrive

I have three new pet guardian angels lurking in my house. The first one is not finished yet but because my scanner does a better job with unfinished pieces and I wanted you to see the dog's wonderful face, I am posting a photo of the ornament before it's made up. Nancy stitched it one-handed in honor of her Schnauzer Cookie. I am amazed that she did this with only one hand (she hurt her other) and that the face is so real! Nancy tells me she used a special thread for the fur called 100% Suri Alpaca Thread and it comes from Salt River Mills. It is distributed by The First and Last Stitch in St. Louis. She says it is for 13-18 count canvas which meant she could handle one strand one-handed and do long and short stitch on Cookie's face and paw with three shades of charcoal gray.
http://www.saltrivermills.com/Needlepoint_-_Yarn.html

http://www.firstandlast.com/





The second two angels just arrived from South Africa today. Odette stitched them and added all sorts of special touches, like crystal butterflies, a delicate beak, beaded halos, lovely green wings, a perfect little rabbit face, etc. I wish you could see them in person. My scanner does a decent job but you have to see Odette's stitching in person to appreciate it.



Aren't they amazing? I am constantly blown away by the artistry of all the stitchers who contributed to this project.

Tomorrow I will start assembling Nancy's angel for her. With only one hand, she just can't do this. Hopefully I'll do OK with two hands! Cookie the Tudor Dog deserves my very best finishing.

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

More Pet Guardian Angels Arrive

Three more pet guardian angels have arrived in Chilly Hollow for their photo shoot before heading off to the ANG Auction in Milwaukee this fall. Like their sisters, they are wonderful! I've added their pictures to the slide show of all the angels on the left side of the page. Just click on the issue of Needle Pointers with the originals on the cover to see the ones I've received to date. In alphabetical order, here are the newest pet guardians--

The first angel to arrive (and the first alphabetically) is Beth's Medieval Cat (shown above). Beth used purple on her angel on her daughter's advice paired with red (one of my favorite color combos!) to create this angel who shouts Charleston! to me every time I look at it. I am totally charmed by the purple feathery boa trim on her jacket (sorry, the scanner mashed it down a little) and I like how her skirt is one pattern instead of the original model's two. This angel has a darling fuzzy Wisper face and paw, and wings of white and gold.



Joanne's Beatrice the Renaissance Rat celebrates Joanne's love of Italy. I'm sorry the photo doesn't show the gold rays of light coming from her halo, her pink pearl nose, or the delicate wings which have white paint showing through the tiny stitches. In person she is spectacular!


Margaret's Tudor Dog is a Golden Retriever in the original colors of white and navy and gold, but the individual touches on this ornament make it totally different from its twins. The collar and sleeve are particularly beautiful and I love the dog's ear! The hearts on the underskirt are against a shimmery white opalescent background. This is a lovely angel indeed. Actually, they are all fantastic. I would have a hard time picking a favorite as each is marvelous and beautifully stitched and finished.

Many thanks to the angels who've been stitching for the Milwaukee ANG Auction. They will be sold as a set as groups of ornaments and larger pieces are the ones that bring in the big bucks and this is a fund raiser to support ANG's programs which we all enjoy.

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

Pet Guardian Angels Start to Appear in Chilly Hollow

As you know, I stitched all six of Kandace Merric's pet guardian angels from the 1996-1997 Needle Pointers magazines for the ANG Auction. I am only one stitcher of many, however. Other angels are being stitched so a set of 15-20 of them will be sold in Milwaukee at ANG's auction night during the annual seminar. I very cleverly volunteered to coordinate the project so that all the angels would fly to Chilly Hollow for collection and packaging and a photo shoot so that all participants and Kandace herself have a document showing the set before they fly away to their new home with some lucky bidder. If you are going to the Milwaukee Seminar, I hope you'll visit the pet guardian angels on display just before the auction and that'll you'll bid for them.

Here are the five that arrived last week so everyone can enjoy them, too. The photo above is Marita's fantastic red and gold Dalmation, straight from a firehouse! Marita told me a bit about her pet guardian angel's backstory. "Dorothea Barker Winks (Dottie to her friends) is a retired firehouse dog. Her middle name is not any type of statement about her personality. Since she is a good Southern girl from Virginia, her mother chose a family name (actually Grandmother's maiden name) for her middle name. As you can guess, red is her favorite color. She is not one for lots of adornments because after all she worked at the firehouse (also her stitcher really hates to mess with beads). She really does appreciate the bright and shiny colors (red and gold) because they remind her of the fire engines that she so loved to ride on."



The next pet guardian angels are from Carole. The details on these two are amazing.I wish you could see the cunning buttons on the Medieval Cat

















or the perfect stitches on the Tudor Dog's autumn colors and braided trim! I don't want to part with these two at all.
















The final two angels are from Pat who dressed her Tudor Dog in the same white, royal blue and gold of the original model using delicate stitches and a very pretty wing pattern.














Her Georgian Rabbit's lovely blue eye and graceful head caught my eye first, then I realized how beautiful the lace trim, the bows and the floral trim are on this piece.


It is going to be very difficult to mail these away to the Auction Chairman!

I'll post more photos as more angels arrive.



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

More Pet Guardian Angels UPDATED

Margaret and Pat have just finished their pet guardian angels for the ANG Auction. You can see photos of their beautiful stitching on their blogs.
http://cranecottage.com/stitchingblog/?p=1075

http://needleartnut.blogspot.com/2009/06/guardian-angels-are-finished.html

UPDATE: I've received photos of Carole's fabulous Autumn Tudor Dog and her beautiful springtime pastels Medieval Cat. These are in the slide show, too.

Remember, you can see Kandace Merric's original angels as well as the ones being stitched for ANG's Auction in the fall in Milwaukee by clicking on the magazine cover that showcased them on the left side of this page.

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

The Golden Rabbit Pet Guardian Angel is Done

I can see the finish line from here, despite the rain and fog we have this morning. Last night I put the Golden Rabbit together and added her trim. The Victorian Parakeet is next and then I'll work assembling the wisteria teapot.

I hate finishing but I must say making up 7 ornaments in a row makes it easier. I feel a lot more confident about finishing now.

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

Two More Pet Guardian Angels Finished

Two more of the pet guardian angels are made up into ornaments, making the grand total of finished pieces four. I have two to go, the Georgian Rabbit and the Victorian Parakeet. The end is in sight! (Or course I have to make the wisteria teapot into an ornament also but we won't quibble at how much I have left to do, right? No one wants to see me burst into tears....)

Above is the Tudor Dog, which I call Holi because her colorful outfit and floral halo were inspired by Mexican floral embroideries and the Indian Festival of Color which is called Holi. Everybody seems to like Holi and she was a lot of fun. I'd encourage anyone to go outside their comfort zone occasionally and really cut loose with their stitching.

And here is the Baroque Fish. She is one of my favoriates as I love the colors and her silver halo and the stitches Kandy Merric created for her are magnificent.

The Golden Rabbit is tonight's finish. Wish me speedy fingers!

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

Two Pet Guardian Angels Are Finished

Now that the glue has finally dried on the parts of my pet guardian angels, I am starting to assemble them. My goal is to finish one a night until all six are made up as ornaments and ready to head off to the ANG Auction at their Milwaukee Seminar this fall. I'm putting them together in the order in which they were published so I'll show them off in the same order. Above is the Medieval Cat whose lovely patterned skirt is just as lovely as when I stitched it last November and whose green eye and head shape I love above all the others, except maybe the rabbit's.

The Renasissance Rat is next--I added whiskers to her little face before I made her up. I love her braided halo and the red wings but the best part of this angel is the bargello pattern on her skirt and the flying ends of her Kreink braid belt.



The back side of each angel is black felt. Here's the Medieval Cat from the back.

I wrote up instructions on how to assemble the angels as I went through making the Medieval Cat into an ornament. I took more photographs and edited my instructions as I worked through the Renaissance Rat. After I finish the editing I'll check the instructions against tonight's angel, the Tudor Dog. My goal is to have a complete set of instructions ready to send out this week to all the other pet guardian angel stitchers so we can make up our angels and get them all to me by the last week in June. Tight deadline but these are pretty easy to do. I think it takes me about 4-5 hours per angel and that's only because I am doing six and making a lot of trim for the edges.

Stay tuned for more angels.

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

Golden Rabbit Finished

While the computer was in the shop, I finished the basketweaved background around Kandace Merric's Georgian Rabbit, the last of the six pet guardian angels that I'm stitching to add to a group of these ornaments that will be auctioned next fall at ANG's Seminar to raise money for ANG programs. You see the Golden Rabbit above. Note that her halo is surrounded by three gold Mill Hill beads topped by a pale copper Toho bead for contrast.

Below you see the Golden Rabbit with the final touch added--a Mill Hill "Glass Treasure" which is a glass charm that has a hole in the top leg of the star. I simply sewed it on with a few passes of a ply of cream silk through the ecru background stitches. I like this final touch and feel lucky I noticed the star at Scarlet Thread during my stopover there on the way to the computer repair place. Thanks, Sara Leigh! Hope you all like how she turned out.


The next step is to finish all the ornaments and write up instructions so that the other folks stitching angels have something to use to finish their ornaments themselves. I plan to post step by step instructions here and then send a more coherent and polished set of instructions to the participants in this stitch-along. Whether you stitched an angel or not, I hope you find the instructions helpful. I'm going to start working on them this holiday weekend.

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

Golden Rabbit Without Makeup, With Beads

In between sessions of backetweave marathoning, I removed the black thread outlining the Golden Rabbit's eye and replaced it with a dark brown bullion in the same DMC cotton floss as her face. I decided the black was too harsh. The bullion is made of three plies of the floss and it is couched in the middle to bend it to arch over her eye. What do you think?

I also added three bullions to her paw to give it dimension. These are in the same thread and same number of plies as the eye bullion, but I started with the longest bullion on the right and did around 20 wraps, the middle bullion only had 15 wraps and the short bullion on the left only 12. I tried to do "fingers" to give depth to the area, inspired by Joan Thomasson and Amy Bunger.

I first saw this technique on Joan Thomasson's Nativity figures. Here are her Three Kings. The hands clearly have bullion fingers.
http://needlepointnow.com/back_issues/2003/2003_11/2003_11_cover.html

Amy Bunger does the same thing in her stitching class on the Kelly Clark Nativity. Look at Joseph's hands.
http://www.amybunger.com/albums/album_image/6366238/4533002.htm

One needs to practice bullions and they are easier to do with a one stranded thread, but I think the bullions I added look good. What do you think? Will you consider doing this on one of your next pieces?

The other thing I've done is scatter beads above the halo. This is a test to see how many and which color looks best, or even if I should do this at all. Starting at the rabbit's nose and arcing upward, you see two of the pale copper Toho beads, then a single gold Mill Hill Petite bead, then a cluster of three gold Mill Hill beads, and finally a single pale copper Toho bead. I think a mix of both types might work but I've run out of time to test that. What do you think?

The reason I've run out of time is that I have to take the laptop in for repair today and I don't know when it will be ready. Apple won't even tell me if they have the repair parts in stock (that's "propriatary" information? !?!??!!). Anyway, I won't be blogging for 2-3 days until the computer comes back but I'll work on the basketweave and once that is done, I'll decide about whether beads above the halo look good or not.

Y'all behave while I'm gone!

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

Beads and Eye Liner

Last night I managed to add the little gold Mill Hill Petite beads to the centers of the flower stitches on the trim on the Golden Rabbit's skirts. I discovered the pale copper beads just disappeared but the gold ones are a bit more visible against the ivory and golden trim stitches. I hope you can see them in the photo. I didn't have trouble getting them to stay in place but they are smaller than the pale copper Toho beads. Those might have misbehaved, as beads do. Odette had trouble with beads when she tried the same thing. Guess the size is what is important here. Smaller beads are less wiggly. Sort of. I still had one bead jump out of the box and escape into my recliner somewhere! Do NOT trust beads. They are escape artists!

i also added a bit of black thread to highlight her eye. Then it was back to the Basketweave Marathon. Lots to do there still! Once I get more background done I'll take beads down around the halo and you can help me decide whether I need beads there or not.

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

Golden Rabbit's Halo

Yesterday it was cool and rainy and windy and I was sick of housework so I couched a halo for the Golden Rabbit using a long strand of my Kreinik copper/gold 002V color. Traditional couching is pairs of metallic thread but I always have more luck couching one thread in such a small space. The halo itself is around an inch long and almost half an inch wide. It is tied down with two strands of gold Accentuate. I worked from the outside in and was very careful to keep the thread from twisting so it would lie smoothly on the NP canvas. After I had everything couched, I started on the background again to help me decide it the halo looks good. It is a bit offset due to the rabbit ears, but I think I like it. What do you think? I am considering adding beads around the outside but that needs to wait until all the background of this area is finished.

I finished all the trims on the skirts except for the final touch of beads. I'm debating whether to use the little gold beads, the larger pale copper beads, or to do French knots in my ivory Silk Lame Braid in the center of the flower shapes. Stay tuned! I'll work on background while I ponder it all. Sometimes it takes a while to visualize the possibilities and see if you can come up with any other ideas, then do a little test stitching.

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

Floral Trim for The Rabbit

Last night I added a bit more basketweave around the Golden Rabbit's wings, then started on the two trims at the edges of her over- and underskirts. Four colors are used n the original design but I decided to use the copper Kreinik for two of them. The ivory Silk Lame Braid is what I used for the flower shapes made of tent and reversed tent stitches. I have no idea what I'll do next but probably it'll involve more basketweave marathon while I think about it. Beads go in the center of the ivory flowers but I might use the little gold beads in her necklace instead of the larger pale copper beads. I don't want to cover up the flowers with a big fat bead in the middle.

Stay tuned.....

In other news, Stitch Niche is posting photos of new canvases daily as they arrive from their Dallas show orders. You can see them here. The second link is their shop newsletter, full of photos of projects finished and underway as usual.
http://www.needlepointyaya.com/website/new/may/mayindex.htm

http://www.needlepointyaya.com/newsletter/may/maynews.htm

Needle Works in Austin is also posting new items. I was particularly interested in SharonG's new half nature/half meditation pieces and in the bird stockings from Share One's Ideas. To see everything from these two designers, click on their name in the left hand column. Don't miss SharonG's Twin Beaks. The pun makes me laugh and the abstract birds would be fabulous stitched in silks and metallic fancy stitches.
Somebody call Marnie Ritter--have I got a painted canvas for her!
http://www.theneedleworks.com/catalog/

In designer news, Lani's updated her website. It's not quite done but you'll enjoy seeing the lovely slide show of finished pieces and the bare naked painted canvases are a treat!
http://www.lanienterprises.com/indexa.html

My final posting is really special. You may know that Kimberly Crum (now Kim Smith) has stopped created charts. I think her pieces are fabulous so I was really sorry when all the work got to be more than she wanted to take on. But we can take heart that occasionally, very occasionally, she creates painted canvases. The newest one is up on her blog. I don't know the size, cost, if a stitch guide comes with it, or any of the details, but the design itself is vintage Kimberly--floral and rthymic and nature in motion. Lovely! I was especially charmed by the large leaf and how the background is denser at the top and then fades towards the bottom. Thank heavens Kimberly gets inspired occasionally!
http://akimberlydesign.blogspot.com/2009/05/swooosh.html

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

Bunny Wings

As you can see, I completely abandoned the basketweave background marathon last night and concentrated on stitching the Golden Rabbit's wings. The white thread is my ivory and gold Silk Lame Braid, while the golden thread is the Lorikeet wool. I used only two plies of the wool here so as not to completely hide the Silk Lame Braid. Once the rows of stitches were in place, I filled in the empty spots betwen stitches with my pale copper beads from Toho. It took a while to stitch everything and I'm not 100% sure that the edges are compensated properly, but today I'll fill in the background around the wings and figure out if there are places that need padding out where they meet my DMC ecru perle background stitches.

I also gave the rabbit a necklace of little gold Mill Hill Petite beads. The pale copper beads didn't look good against the brown of her neck fur, so I went with gold.

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

Wings for Liz

The endless basketweave marathon continued last night but I did make a start on the Golden Rabbit's wings. Here you go, Liz! You've been asking what I planned to do. This time I didn't really plan, I just browsed through "Sundance Beads for Needlepoint: How To & Why Knot." The booklet has 25 unnamed stitches in the back that the Sundance folks like using when beading. The diagonal flow appealed to me and I thought the stitch would look nice with the ones I used on the pet guardian angel's robe. I didn't plan to alternate my ivory Silk Lame Braid with my overdyed golden Gloriana silk floss. It just happened as I was studying the stitch diagram and deciding which areas were more prominant and where the beads would go. Angel wings are usually white and the ivory mixed with gold was the closest I have to white in my color scheme. The pale copper beads will sit in the unstitched holes once the rows of stitches are laid out.

I still have a lot of background to do. I'll work on that tonight for a while and then switch to filling in more wing area.

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

Picking Flower Colors, Adding Fur

As you can see, I haven't worked any more on the skirt trims for Miss Honeybunny (honey=golden, does it make sense now?). Instead I stitched her paw and most of her face. I still have the eye and nose to do but these areas are essentially done. I just happened to have two skeins of DMC cotton floss not put away yet that were a perfect match for the golden gown the Golden Rabbit wears. (The dark brown is #610 and the lighter tan is #612).

You might think that I switched to the face and paw because I was tired and basketweaving these areas was an easy way to show progress. That's only part of the story. The real reason I wanted to stitch the fur was the floral trim on her over- and under-skirts.

The over-skirt trim is a floral pattern that is 6 stitches wide, while the under-skirt trim is a floral pattern 4 stitches wide. The outside edge of both trims in the original instructions is gold Kreinik braid. I have stitched this already for both trims. But moving to the next step was a problem for me. The floral trims both have French knot centers for the flower shapes. I can use my pale copper beads there. But what about the flower-shaped stitches (yellow in the original model), the tent and reverse tent sttiches that are supposed to be leaves (green in the original model), and the accent stitches (straight and large cross stitches) which are violet in the original. I have limited myself to overdyed gold and light gold colors, so I needed to introduce more colors that would work with gold. I decided that the brown and tan on the rabbit's face might do for some of the trim colors, but to know for sure, I thought I needed to stitch the face. So I did!

Every part of a canvas effects every other part, doesn't it?

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