Cute as a Button

Linda has just finished a cute snowman ornament and posted a photo. Look at the candy cane button! Isn't that the cutest?! 
http://splittheneedles.blogspot.com/2014/06/more-christmas-finishes.html

Buttons sometimes are the perfect finishing touch.  Don't have a fabrics shop or big box crafts emporium locally?  Shop online.
http://www.lotsofbuttons.com/en/

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright June 25, 2014 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Finishing Friday: Listen to Nimble Needle

Stephanie shows off a lovely double-sided snowman, a repost of a friend's work who only posts things on Facebook.  Thanks, Stephanie!
http://stephsstitching.blogspot.com/2014/05/in-case-youre-not-on-facebook.html

The really important finishing today is from Nimble Needle. It's not the pretty pictures that are important--you need to read NN's point about the stitching being from stitchers at different levels of ability with different goals who all got amazing results that fit their vision of needlepoint.
http://thenimbleneedle.blogspot.com/2014/05/customers-finished-items.html

It's not how impressive your stitching is, it's how great your vision is.  Anyone can have a spectacular finish no matter whether they are a beginner or a long-time needlepoint expert.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright May 20, 2014 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Snow is a Dirty Word, But...

"Snow" is a dirty word around here, along with other words like "cold," "ice," and "winter."  You'd  think I wouldn't really like snowmen, either, but I have to say Suzaanne's snowman is awfully cute.
http://suzannehicks.blogspot.com/2014/02/michael-my-favorite-snowman.html

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
@ Copyright 2014 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Quail Run's Shop Newsletter

Quail Run's June shop newsletter is out.  The new format is full of photographs (What are those Campbell soup cans for on page four?), trunk show and sale dates, an analysis of a wonderful little snowman canvas that they are offering a stitch guide for,  links to their Facebook photo album of finished projects, a color book review, and more!
http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk//launch.aspx?eid=9944dd05-ece0-42bf-b502-6dad763d9260

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.

Icy, But in a Good Way

Ruth has finished up her latest mystery class for Bedecked and Beadazzled. It's a snowman from Zecca.  Think snowflakes and beads and sequins and FUN in all capital letters!
http://www.notyourgrandmothersneedlepoint.com/2013/01/the-snow-is-falling-chill-is-in-air.html

The Tapestry Fair Egyptian Cat Bastet is the next mystery class.  From snow and ice to desert sand, what will Ruth do next?
http://www.bedeckedandbeadazzled.com/needlepoint/--a-24.asp

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

Frosty the Snowman with Sequins

Ruth Schmuff has posted progress on her newest mystery class--the Zecca snowman. You will be shocked, SHOCKED, to see that she used open stitches for the background and sequins.
http://www.notyourgrandmothersneedlepoint.com/2012/12/sparkles-are-good-thing.html

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

How to Make a Snowman

Needle Nicely shows us how to make a snowman in needlepoint in the link below. The canvas is delightful and the fact that Needle Nicely is in Florida where it almost never gets below freezing adds to the charm for me.
http://needlenicely.blogspot.com/2012/10/frosty-snowman.html

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

Way Too Cheerful About Snow Part Deux UPDATED

I hate snow.

This snowman ornament worship has to stop! We hate snow in CH!!!  Stitch anything BUT snowmen!!!!  Please?

Well, you can tell that no one at Serendipity Needleworks pays any attention to Moi.  Their newest monthly club information is on their blog, and the first canvas is a snowman ornament from Debbie Mumm/Melissa Shirley Designs.  They call their club Home for the Holidays, and the Mumm ornaments feature stitch guides written by Julia Snyder.  Obviously they haven't heard about Winter 2010 when I was trapped at home for a total of 28 days over three blizzards.  No groceries, no mail, no leaving the house except to shovel the porch and walk the dogs.  The photo above memorializes the Horror Of It All.  I ran out of coffee....
http://serendipityneedleworks.blogspot.com/2012/01/happy-new-year.html

Here's a bit about how to sign up.
http://serendipityneedleworks.blogspot.com/2012/01/home-for-holidays-2012-ornament-club.html

Here are the ornaments and which month they'll arrive.
http://serendipityneedleworks.blogspot.com/2012/01/these-canvases-starring-in-home-for.html

Needlepoint.com has also caught the snowman madness with their monthly club.  Where's the beach clubs?!?!??!  Ok, Kirk and Hamilton have done darling "snow cones" but I want crabs and mermaids and sea horses!  I'm with Nancy and can't wait to see what she finds at market.
http://www.needlepoint.com/blog/?p=883

Nancy, M's Canvas House has a fabulous Christmas ornament set that are all beachy!   It's called A Beach Lover's Twelve Days of Christmas.  Each is about 4 inches in diameter on 18 count canvas.  They cost $50 retail and if you buy all twelve you get a discount bringing the total cost for the entire set to $550.  I suppose they are from Elizabeth Turner Designs but they aren't on their website or on the M's website either.  Good luck finding a beach set!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxRfqmMmJ4I

UPDATE:  The Beach Lover's 12 Days set is going to be offered at Needle Orts (Altamonte Springs, FL).  I'm told in the Comments they'll have an ad about the club in the upcoming issue of Needlepoint Now.  Makes me happy.  Nothing is on their website club page yet but stay tuned.  Thanks, Anon!
http://www.needleorts.com/on_sale.cfm

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

Way Too Cheerful About Snow!

I don't like snow. It is a pain to shovel and there is always the danger factor of falls and traffic accidents in the air, not to mention the danger of power outages.  This year whenever snow is in the weather report, I'm going to add the falling snowflake effect to Blog.  You can then send waves of sympathy!  LOL

However, not everyone hates snow.  I remember when snow meant No School, can't you? Pocket Full of Stitches is memorializing those happy thoughts with a collection of the snowmen canvases they have in stock.  Perhaps you need to stitch one of these the next time you have snow in your weather forecast....
http://pocketfullofstitches.blogspot.com/2012/01/snowmen.html

http://pocketfullofstitches.blogspot.com/2011/12/collegiate-snowmen.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

Snowman Has a Hat and Scarf

It is definitely turning into fall in Chilly Hollow. I've been in the habit of taking progress photos most mornings but recently it has been too dark for me to do this. Some of this is due to overcast skies, some due to the fall fogs we have this time of year. Now I'm trying to make time when I get home from work among the chores that have to be done before the sun sets to take my photos. Please be patient!

So you are not going to see the more normal progression photos as I work on the snowman ornament for Mim's shipment of Christmas trees and ornaments overseas. I'll still explain how I worked, though. For example, I started out tent stitching around the perimeter of the snowman's face with my metallic ribbon floss. I didn't fill in the center where the eyes and mouth and nose go until I was able to put in half cross stitches for the red smile (Patina, a shiny nylon thread), the pink cheeks (Flair), and eyes (MillHill's Magnifica beads). Since snowmen traditionally have lumps of coal for eyes, I didn't do the eyes exactly the same. Coal chunks are very angular and I wanted eyes that looked like coal would. The black beads are attached with two plies of black DMC cotton so the thread doesn't show.

Once the smile, cheeks and eyes were in, I finished tent stitching the entire face. Then it was time for the carrot nose. I had originally intended to fill a tube of orange Flair with orange beads but that provide impossible. Instead, I laid down a long stitch in orange Patina (more nylon thread) and wrapped it with orange Flair in a fake bullion. I like the snowman's happy little face and hope you do also.

But a snowman for Christmas isn't just a cute smile--he's got to have clothes!

I grabbed a sheet of paper from the trash and using the same glass candlestick, drew circles on it, then sketched out a variety of cap and hat styles and scarves on the paper circles. Once I had something I liked, I tent stitched the outline onto my NP canvas. In the photo below, you see the stocking cap and scarf I ended up with.

The scarf is outlined, but I stitched most of the stocking cap last night, using a stitch from the September-October 2008 Needlepoint Now. Marnie Ritter has done a great purse design called "Fascination" with all kinds of fancy stitches and I used the purple stitch in the middle for the snowman's stocking cap. I may use another stitch from the purse for the scarf. I've not decided yet.

http://www.needlepointnow.com/Magazines/2008-09/Cover.htm

Inspired by Pocket Full of Stitches' knit cap and gloves canvases (see links),

http://www.pfos.com/ChristmasClubs/CozyCaps/page1.htm

http://www.pfos.com/ChristmasClubs/WarmWooly/warmwooly.htm

I've pulled a bunch of colors, mostly red and lime green and orange sherbet with some medium blue, from my stash and I'm mixing and matching textures to create the colorful outfit on the showman. His cap is the ribbon-like in lime green tied down with a greener shade of lime in Impressions (silk-wool blend) with straight lines in the empty spaces in the pale gold-peach Impressions. I tied down the lime green ribbon with two strands of medium blue Accentuate to add sparkle and also used a strand of the same blue Accentuate to attach the orange beads I'd originally thought would make a great carrot nose. The next step will be to add a fuzzy ball to the tip of the stocking cap and fuzzy trim around the snowman's face.

I'm thinking I'll use Kathy Feschel's turkeywork variation stitch which you can see here on the ANG website.

http://www.needlepoint.org/StitchOfTheMonth/2006/aug.php

Now all I need to do is decide which thread! I'm leaning toward a medium blue Impressions mixed with the blue Accentuate. But it might make more sense to couch down a fuzzy thread instead since there isn't much space at the edge of the stocking cap around the snowman's face. Hard to make your turkeywork really plush with only 2-3 lines of stitches.

Stay tuned!

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