Army Life (and Later)

Virginia has received her wonderful Lee Army ornament back from the finisher. This is a tribute to her husband's military career.  It turned out wonderfully!
http://stitchstyleblog.com/2015/05/lee-army-round/

Speaking of the military, you may have noticed the fund raiser for Sandy Sandell that has appeared on the right side of Blog.  Sandy has intestinal cancer.  He is a minister in northern Thailand, close to the border of Myamar, who practices dentistry among various tribal groups who don't have access to a dentist.  He's been doing this for decades.  The insurance his church sponsor offers covers a third of his medical treatment costs and friends are trying to raise more money.  If you can help, please do so by clicking on that link to donate.  You can read more about Sandy's amazing careers here.
http://helpsandy.net

Are their kids in your family who play the Call of Duty games on video game consoles like the xBox and Playstation?  If they are playing Call of Duty:  Black Ops they are playing what Sandy did for real in Vietnam.  Fred Lindsey's book has excerpts of some of the things Sandy did for his country in the war to keep South Vietman independent of the North.  I've heard many more stories about him along the same lines.  His spiritual descendants are carrying out covert missions today, with much better equipment, but the same tactics Sandy and his friends devised 40 years ago.
http://tinyurl.com/kmtoep8

The media have portrayed Vietnam vets as either crazy maniacs or damaged Jason Bourne-type superheroes since the Vietnam War ended.  They have no idea how heroic most of them still are in their daily lives.  We lost a saint when Sandy Sandell died.
http://www2.lcc.org/index.php/missions

https://vimeo.com/164117944

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright May 18, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

A Tribute to a Needlepointer

Juli Poitras' Purple Heart

I thought those of you with military heroes in our families would like to read this article from last year.  
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/anaconda-wwii-veteran-to-receive-purple-heart-bronze-star-after/article_abda2286-74a4-11e3-842e-0019bb2963f4.html

The canvas of a Purple Heart is from JP Needlepoint.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright January 11, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

TNNA Market Trends

Enough new designs are out at the Winter TNNA show that I have seen new trends emerging in the painted canvas world for 2015--The first is that mushrooms are everywhere, especially the poisonous Amanita muscaria with its white polka dots on a red cap.  Birds of a Feather has a lot of small mushroom pieces.
http://pocketfullofstitches.blogspot.com/2015/01/phoenix-canvases-coming-home-with-us.html

Vicki Sawyer of Melissa Shirley Designs has the hedgehog and baby owl wearing Amanitas.
http://melissashirleydesigns.com/galsearch/index.cgi?index=1415046012_30135&col=

http://melissashirleydesigns.com/galsearch/index.cgi?index=1412728061_16438&col=

These build upon Maggie's mushroom canvas and Melissa Shirley's vintage mushrooms from last year.
http://www.stitchtherapyneedlepoint.com/feature.php?id=23684&title=Fungi&itemtype=hand%20painted%20canvases

http://www.stitchtherapyneedlepoint.com/feature.php?id=12115&title=Vintage%20Mushrooms/Boletus&itemtype=hand%20painted%20canvases

The second trend is canvases that honor our military and police, joining canvases that honor firemen that have been available since 2001.  Colors of Praise has new police and firemen badges and...
http://pocketfullofstitches.blogspot.com/2015/01/phoenix-market-saturday-update.html

Juli Poitras' miliary medals showing the Bronze Star, Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart.
http://jpneedlepoint.com/Newdesigns.html

What trends have you noticed?

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright January 11, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Amy's Drinking

Yep, it finally happened. Amy Bunger's slugging back the drinks in her latest newsletter, in which she showcases the various glass and drinks canvases she's stitched guides for over the years, which is a fun way to toast the newest year.  There's more--Tony Minieri classes, the new small figure canvases of Rogue Needlepoint, including a wonderful series of military figures, and a book sale of Amy's duplicates from her collection.  Just click on the link and enjoy.
http://www.amybunger.com/f/0113.pdf

By the way, if drinks aren't your thing, Rittenhouse is into flowers.
http://rittenhouseneedlepoint.blogspot.com/2012/12/i-must-have-flowers-always-and-always.html

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

Military Canvases

Sandy Grossman-Morris showcased a custom military badge canvas on her blog she created for her daughter as a reminder that her custom painted canvases can create a very special and personal ornament or pillow for the soldier/sailor/airman in your life.
http://sandygrossman-morris.blogspot.com/2011/11/military-emblems-needlepoint-canvases.html


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

One Snowman, Ready for Shipment

The snowman's done! He will go out in the mail Monday to my friend Mimi who is collecting handmade, unbreakable ornaments to adorn the 200 trees her group is sending overseas to decorate mess halls of our troops during the holiday season. I hope he brings a bit of home to folks who are in harm's way for our country's sake. Here's the back side. You can see better here that the Fantasticfoam gives the ornament a padded pillow look. It's quite light-weight, too, which is a good thing for ornaments that have to be sent quite a distance.



What did I learn from this design? Despite the ease of drawing a snowman, I'm no artist. His face near the scarf needs rounding out and the scarf blows the wrong way. I knew that when I drew it but I was working in a small space since I grabbed a scrap through my stock of them and there wasn't room to put the scarf the way it should go. However, it turned out ok.

I also learned that to have a really plush turkeywork-style beard you need at least 10 empty rows. I only had three rows at the edge of the stocking cap which is rather skimpy. It looks fine--our snowman is going to be in a hot climate probably, after all--but I'll remember the need for elbow room to give this stitch space to look its best the next time I want to use it. And if I don't have that room, I'll use another thread or technique to get a fur effect.


Here are the other ornaments heading out with the snowman, courtesy of a wonderful lady who rummaged around her stock of ornaments and found these to donate. They are mostly beaded perforated paper and they are lovely--nothing is too good for our troops!

My husband's Christmases in the military were just another day, with not even a hot meal. I'm doing my best to keep that from happening to this generation of military men and women.

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Snowman Parts

Above you see the finished snowman off the stretcher bars with the items I'll use to make him into an ornament. The black grid pieces are plastic canvas. Two pieces are cut slightly smaller than the outside dimension of the actual snowman NP. The tan pieces are acid free foam called Fantasticfoam, which is used --among other things-- in finishing. It comes in sheets like the plastic canvas does. I cut it to the same size as the plastic canvas pieces and there are two of those also.

The last item is a piece of gold lame fabric. It's tissue lame, pretty thin, and the wind moved it in the photo. You can see it is frayed a bit at the edges, which is one reason why it is much larger than the piece of needlepoint, even including the outside unstitched margins.

What I did last night was to layer the fabric, padding foam, then plastic canvas and wrap the two inner pieces like a package, turning my wide margins of gold lame to the back and stitching them in place with sewing thread. Then I layered my needlepoint with the foam next to the back side of my stitching, then the plastic canvas behind that. (In either case, the foam is trapped between the needlepoint (or fabric) and the plastic canvas.) The needlepoint isn't as wide or flexible as the gold lame fabric, so I folded the edges over to the back around the inside layers and laced them in place, with a doubled strand of sewing thread. You end up with two halves of an ornament which can be sewed or glued together. I sewed mine, going around the outside edges and whip stitching them together, making sure everything lined up. Don't forget to put a loop hanger between the layers as you sew because this is a Christmas tree ornament that needs something to attach it to the tree!

This makes a fat sandwich with edges that are around 3/8 inches wide. That's wider than the normal ornament edge width I get but I wanted to try finishing this way to see how it turns out. I actually have a little pillow with the snowman on the front and the gold lame on the back. I'm not sewing trim around the edge to hide the join and make the snowman more decorative. I am having a bit of trouble with the trim because I didn't have anything the right dimension. All my trim and cord and braid was either too skinny or too fat. I solved that problem by doing two trims around the margin--I'm currently sewing a wired gold trim I bought at the fabric store around the edge. When I finish I will couch another trim in front of it--the smaller blue Snow thread that made the background. That will hide the join better and look pretty with blue and gold together.

I am not finished sewing the two trims on yet, but should finish that tonight to show off the finshed piece tomorrow. In the meantime, why don't we go over to NC Pat's blog and see her put her Janet Z. Casey Santa ornament together? She uses a somewhat similar finishing technique and gets great results which is why I wanted to try this style of finishing. I don't normally finish the front and back of an ornament as halves of a whole that need to be fitted together. Remember, this is a blog. You'll need to scroll down past part two to find "Let's Finish the Santa Heart."

http://needleartnut.blogspot.com/

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Blocked Again

The snowman's edges are getting a little frayed during the blocking process (this is the main reason you see such wide margins on painted canvases and why they are covered with masking tape or artist's tape or bias tape or sewn) but he is much squarer. The lower right corner still sticks out like a snail's foot but this I can hide in finishing. I should add that a professional finisher (or someone who is a lot pickier than I am) wouldn't settle for this and would block a third time. But I'm not going to bother because I know I can compensate for the slight distortion in the ornament.

I hope to take him off the stretcher bars and assemble my finishing supplies tonight.

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Blocked!

Yesterday I stuck the snowman ornament under running cold water in the sink and got him damp all over (not sopping wet).  Then I stapled him to 5x4 inch stretcher bars which is the outside dimension of the scrap of 18 count canvas I stitched him on.  If I'd put him on stretcher bars to stitch, I might not have needed to block him.  No guarantees on that, though.  Interlocking Goblein pulled him quite a bit out of true.  Oddly, this stitch which I normally use in the thinner and more forgiving Impressions, pulled more using Caron's Snow than my more usual thread.  The type and size of thread you use makes a difference in whether you need to block just like the stitch you used does.

I took a chance wet blocking this piece. You never know whether a thread is colorfast.  In fact, cross stitchers who normally wash their background fabric both before and after stitching and who also wash their threads before stitching with them, deal with running colors all the time.    I used a lot of synthetics which in my experience don't run.  The red smile nylon thread was my biggest concern but it only ran a smidge and it isn't noticable in person although you can see it in the photograph.

This sat overnight and dried.  I will reblock today as the lower right corner could be a little less prominent.  But he's going to be much easier to finish as a square than a parallelogram!

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Fringe

 

Last night I adding some straight stitches in three of the four scarf colors to mimic fringe. I didn't use the blue Impressions since it would visually disappear against the overpowering blue sparkly background. After that, I did stem stitch using my light rose silk/wool Impressions on top of the ends of the scarf since knitted items are bound off on the ends. That made it look more real.
As you can see, the piece is finished but distorted. The next step will be to block the piece. I'll work on that tonight and explain how I did it tomorrow.

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Blue Snow Background

I've started on the background behind the snowman, using Caron's Snow in blue to set off the snowman and his outfit. This will make the snowman sparkle in artificial light on the tree he ends up decorating. Snow is a synthetic thread in the "chainette" form, which means it is a sort of braid that will unravel into its component parts. So stitch with short lengths (under 10 inches) and you might want to put something like a dab of FrayChek on the end sticking out of the needle's eye to stop the unraveling. Here are all the colors--

http://www.caron-net.com/snow.html

I was doing interlocking Goblein at the bottom and up the right side but the thread is thick enough it was starting to distort the NP canvas badly so I switched to basketweave. I'll still have to block him before making an ornament but that's no big deal, especially for something so small. You can't see the two different stitches in person as the sparkle is overwhelming. Only the camera knows....

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

The Snowman's Scarf Done (except for fringe)

The photo above shows the scarf finished on the snowman and the background begun. First, the scarf.

With the snowman canvas turned so his scarf was at the bottom (and his stocking cap at the top) I did rows of reverse skip tent in my count/color sequence of 5 pale rose, 3 red, 7 lime green and 1 blue. I started with the knot at the front and did that in mostly lime green because that was the color I wanted in front. Remember, a scarf wrapped around your neck won't have the pattern continue in a regular manner (that's one thing I might have done to the Joan Thomasson wizard's robes, made the pattern irregular to mimic the folds in the long robes). So you are free to play around with your starting point doing Chottie's Plaid. That will make the scarf look more real.

Once I finished I outlined the scarf ends and knots with buttonhole stitch except for the line dividing the two scarf ends which is stem stitch. I turned the canvas so that the stocking cap was on the bottom to stitch that line and discovered buttonhole stitch done upside down is stem stitch. Or something. It isn't buttonhole! But it looks ok, particularly since it is not the bound-off knit sides of the scarf, so I left it alone. Mistakes aren't necessarily disasters, you know.

I've now started the background of the ornament using Caron's Snow, which is a chainette type thread that comes in a ton of colors these days. The white is perfect for Snow, but some of the other colors are very pretty. It's an easy metallic to work with but you need to use short lengths as the chainette will start to unravel after a while, especially since I'm using Interlocking Goblein for the stitch which means the thread goes down between threads which stresses it. I also experimented with switching to tent stitch so that there is a raised border and then a less prominent background but I'm not sure I like it. I'll think about that for a bit and continue the miles of tent stitches around the wizard's perimeter instead.

Eventually I'll create fringe for the scarf's ends but that has to wait until the background is done. Looking at the photo I posted, I see I forgot to outline the second lime green knot on the scarf. Maybe I'll do that next.

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

The Snowman's Scarf

The photo shows the snowman's scarf underway. I discovered the fancy Marnie Ritter stitches I wanted to use were too big in scale for them to show up in the narrow, long space of the scarf. What to do?

Obviously, this is a job for Superman!

Well, actually, Chottie Alderson came to the rescue. Not in person but I've always admired the late Ms. Alderson's design sense, creativity, and sense of humor. (Her website of chottie.com seems to be down right now or I'd show off some of her fabulous designs.) She's the one who said if it isn't fun, it isn't needlepoint. Words of wisdom to live by! One of her most famous inventions is the Chottie Plaid which is what the scarf is being stitched with.

It's basically a plaid based on skip tent and a series of numbers. I choose the number sequence of 5-3-7-1 for my plaid and I'm using four colors--lime green, light rose, blue and bright red. I stitched a purple and yellow glasses case with a monogram in the center based on the birthday of the lady I was making it for once. You can use any number sequence you want (your phone number, your street address number, etc.) but since I had a limited space I only used four colors and a series of four small numbers.

If you look at the photo, you'll see the two-part scarf is stitched but the left end closest to the snowman's face looks denser than the right end. That's because the right side is only half finished but the short end of the scarf on the left is done.

I started at the top of the long end of the scarf and did five rows of skip tent in my light rose color (5-3-7-1, remember?). The next three rows of skip tent were in red, then I did seven rows of skip tent in lime green, followed by one row of blue, which ended the first sequence. Starting over at 5 again, I did another five rows of light rose. I worked the scarf all the way to the bottom doing my skip tent according to my pattern of 5-3-7-1 in the light rose-red-lime green-blue colors. You don't have to use four numbers and four colors (you can use 5 numbers and only two colors, or really anything you want).

The second step to finish Chottie's Plaid is to turn the canvas 90 degrees so that the scarf is at the bottom and the tip of the carrot nose of the snowman points down. Now, using the same number sequence and colors, do reverse skip tent stitch in the empty thread intersections. This makes the plaid denser and is a lot of fun because it is when you actually see what plaid pattern you have created looks like. Remember, I started with 5 rows of my light rose, then switched to three rows of red. Because the scarf is narrow, that's really all the reversed skip tent I could do.

I could stop at this point because right now it looks as if the smaller end of the scarf nearest the face is in shadow. This is a good way to shade scarves, in fact. I'm not going stop here, but remember this the next time you have a flowing scarf that is partly in light and partly in shadow. Today I hope to reverse skip tent the longer end of the scarf so that you see my plaid creation in full.

This isn't the only way to stitch plaids and I'm not 100% certain that another lady didn't come up with something similar about the same time, but Chottie gets the credit for a fun way to create a mystery plaid.

Thanks, Chottie, wherever you are!

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Snowman Has Fur

In the photo above you see the finished turkeywork fringe around the snowman's face and at the tip of his stocking cap. I've also started filling in a pattern on his scarf, using another of Marnie Ritter's stitches from her Sept.-October 2008 Needlepoint Now project (on the cover).

His face is a tad lop-sided but I'll wait and see whether I need to adjust that.

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

And For My Next Trick

First, I've added a photo of my almost completed wizard two entries back. That's the other side of the repeat posting about wired Flair. There really isn't much to see except the charms are in place, but there it is. I am working on tent stitching two rows outside the background now. That will take a while.

To keep from dying of boredom, I've started a Christmas ornament for Mimi, my friend who needs ornaments for 200 Christmas trees that are going overseas this holiday season for our troops. I don't have any stitched ornaments to donate (Mimi needs non-breakables to ship) so I am making one for her. Above is the first step, drawing a circle.

I'm going to make a snowman. They are small enough to make good ornaments and very easy to draw. In the photo above I took a candlestick holder out of the kitchen cabinets and dotted around the outside edge to make the snowman's face. I'm busy tent stitching that in using the metallic style of ribbon floss in Opal. It is opalescent white with touches of pink and green and quite shiny. Looks like sparkly snow!

Stay tuned as the snowman gets personality with a face while I do more tent stitches.

By the way, if you have ornaments you can spare for the troops this year, let me know in the Comments section and I'll put you in touch with Mimi. She needs everything before Halloween as they ship the first week in November.

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow