The Victorian Parakeet, Halo and All

Last night I put the finishing touches on my version of Kandace Merric's Victorian Parakeet. I backstitched a bit around the winged hands and the parakeet's head with my grey Medici, then added a halo using the three metallics I have already used in this project--Caron's orange Snow, the Kreinik purple with orange highlights that inspired the color scheme, and a bit of dark purple Accentuate #140.

I'd already used the Accentuate on the purple skirt area but not mentioned it to you. If you look back at earlier photos of the Victorian Parakeet, the purple skit seemed to have bare canvas showing through the areas where the stepped stitch used in most of this design met. The orange areas, that use the same stitch oriented in a different direction, didn't have this bare spot. I'm not sure why this appeared in the vertical stitch orientation and not in the horizontal. Usually it's upright stitches where you don't have full coverage. You can take a length of #8 perle cotton and stitch a diagonal sittch on 18 count NP canvas and it'll cover ok, but that same thread on the same count canvas in a stitch that is vertical may not cover. That's something you take into account when you switch threads called for in a stitch guide. You might have to use a more plies for the upright stitches if the substitute thread is skinnier than the original. Play around with this on your scrap canvas using a Mosaic stitch and a bargello stitch and you'll see what I mean.

That doesn't seem to have happened here, but I've always heard that very dark colors make thread slightly thinner. My purple silk is Soie d'Alger and I think the orange silk is also. Could it be the number of times the purple silk had to go through the chemicals of the dye bath to achieve that rich royal purple made the plies a bit thinner than the orange silk? May be. If I'd noticed ahead of time I could have used 5 plies of silk in the purple areas instead of 4, but I didn't.

That's where the purple Accentuate came in--I back stitched with a doubled strand of it right over the bare areas. If you squint at the photo you'll see the purple metallic in the skirt.

I've really enjoyed stitching Kandace Merric's Victorian Parakeet. For some reason, I'm the only person who volunteered to stitch a parakeet so I wanted her to be extra special, with deep, rich colors and a slightly different halo to make her stand out from the rest as much as possible. I hope I suceeded! This was a challenging stitch --that braid trim was hard to do, I had trouble at first getting the right look to the parakeet's wings and head, those durn bare spots in the skirt--but I think I overcame the challenges and I don't always want to stitch an easy piece. I like challenge with my NP, thank you very much!

Kandace Merric delivers with fascinating designs and interesting stitches, and I have had a very good time with the Medieval Cat and now the Victorian Parakeet in the Household Pet Guardian Angel series.

Next up--the Baroque Fish!


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

Buttons and Necklace But No Halo

The Victorian parakeet got more basketweave background last night, plus beads for buttons on her jacket front and a bead necklace. The necklace chain is the Kreinik metallic that inspired the colors of her clothing. In the original Kandace Merric chose colors typical of the Victorian period. The original parakeet wore a pink gown with pink and green braided trim.

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

Introducing Kandy Merric's Victorian Parakeet Pet Guardian Angel

Plenty of times during the holidays I've sat down and stitched a little on my second pet guardian angel for the ANG Auction in Milwaukee next fall. I just haven't talked about it with all the other things we've all had going on.

But since the Victorian Parakeet is almost done, how about a picture?

I have to say, this has been a really interesting piece to stitch. See the braided trim on her sleeves, down the front of her jacket and at the bottom of her apron and long dress? That was a real pain to do! I finally mastered the braid stitch in a straight line, only to have to learn to do a similar braid on a slant. It was difficult and fascinating to interweave the purples and peaches to get a smooth and lovely touch for this pet guardian angel.

Now look at the sleeve and jacket bodice and the three sections of the back of her skirt and bustle. That is all the same stitch, oriented differently. The purple skirt areas use the same stitch as well. I found it fascinating to see how slanting the stitch various ways gave dimention to the various areas of the parakeet's clothing.

I used an unusual color mix for me based on a Kreinik metallic that mixes purple and orange. I saw this thread on Michele Herron's blog when she was working on the darling Tapestry Tent/Susan Roberts Halloween trick or treaters canvas. The little red haired girl in the witch costume was wearing Kreinik 5007 (a purple with hints of orange) mixed with a lavender Kreinik metallic.

http://bristlythistle.blogspot.com/2008/11/cute-little-witch-with-red-hair.html

I was fascinated by 5007 and picked up a spool. Since I found a royal purple Soie d'Alger (#1345) and a peach/orange silk that I think is also Soie d'Alger in my stash, I only needed one more metallic to outfit the parakeet in purples and oranges. I choose Caron's Snow in Fire Orange #13, which is pumpkin and gold. These aren't "my" colors but I'm very happy with the choices which make the Victorian parakeet look elegant, not like an escapee from Halloween.

The last bit of the parakeet was its wings, wing-tip hands, and the head. (Remember, all the pet guardian angels have the same tent-stitched background in Ecru DMC perle cotton.) These are in Medici using Blanc (white) and 8380 (a soft grey with undertones of pink). The wings turned out beautifully once I outlined each feather and overstitched the tips with grey. All white wings blended into the ecru background without the grey outlines.

I stitched the head and wing tip hands in basketweave with one strand of my Blanc Medici. That was a mistake. The blue outlines where the shading was to go showed too much as the white thread didn't cover. So I went back over the area around the eye (that's a Mill Hill Magnifica bead in color 10120 held on by a big fat French knot using my purple Soie d'Alger) with \ stitches to make the face near the beak and eye cross stitches. That helped but still didn't cover. What to do?!?!?! Ok, let's try a second layer of basketweave on top of the rest of the head. Still didn't cover. Ok, let's put a third layer on top, this time Interlocking Goblein. And it worked! I have a feathery look to the bird's head. I should mention I back stitched the grey lines showing feather marks on top of the first two layers on one strand of Medici and the Interlocking Goblein went on top of the cross stitches, the basketweave and the back stitching. Since I used all white for the Interlocking Goblein, it softened the look and made it all quite feathery. Which goes to show ripping out isn't always the best way to hide mistakes!

I need to finish the background and then add buttons and a broach to the outfit and give our angel a halo. So I have a way to go.

Hopefully today I'll get some of the fnishing done on my Squiggee Three Women piece since I'm stuck at home due to an ice storm. Everybody stay safe and hope the power stays on!

Whoops! Almost forgot the beak! That's tent stitches in a third metallic, plain old Kreinik #273 copper in tent stitches topped with a few free-hand slanted \ stitches for the top of the beak where parakeets have a roughened area.
Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow