Janet from La La Land is back with more details on the stitching of her Mexican Lady canvas. If you missed the introduction, she is working on an adaptation of a Linda Carter Holman painting from Melissa Shirley Designs. You can see the unstitched canvas below, courtesy of Laura Zickus who photographed it for Needle Nook of La Jolla’s website. Janet is working the 13 count version of this piece, although it is also available on 18 count needlepoint canvas.
http://www.needlenookoflajolla.com/storedir/proddetail.php?prod=ch118-2
Now here is Janet:
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“As you know from last week I experimented with laying silk flowers on the part of the canvas that has the roses. I knew all along that their permanent placement would depend on the Calla lilies. The Calla lilies are huge and take up a lot of visual space on the canvas. They are also bigger than Juanita’s head. So, I could choose to de-emphasize them by using small stitches or an open stitch. Due to the large presence of open stitches in the shawl I decided not to repeat that idea.
I experimented with silk Calla lilies but they were way too big, nor could they be successfully flattened. Hmmm, what to do…. I cut out pieces of paper the approximate size shown on the canvas. I knew that white would look even bigger on the canvas. In the border town of Tijuana, Mexico there are street vendors with wonderful, huge flowers made of crepe paper. Having that in the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to somehow convey that idea onto the canvas.
Finally I picked a white fabric with small white stars to use as appliqués. Why the stars? Because all that white needed to be broken up. (When you see the actual piece the stars show up but my camera didn’t pick them up as they are white on white.) I used the stuff that quilters use to iron two pieces of fabric (front and back) together, and then machine-stitched tiny braid all around each flower. Finally, I hand stitched each flower onto the canvas. And I used an orange fabric ink to indicate the pistils. I am not done yet with the pistils but deadlines for Blog are such that I’m sending the ‘rough draft’ anyway. I made a bow out of the small braid and stitched it to the canvas so the bouquet was ‘tied’ together.
You can see that I removed the silk flowers for the roses. After all, too much is too much, and the fabric Calla lilies and the silk roses competed for attention. So, what am I going to do for the roses? As Deng Xiao Ping famously once said, ‘You cross the river by stepping on one stone at a time.’ I have some ideas but will have to try them out.
I attached the shiny metallic thread/sequin braid to Juanita’s skirt. I think you can now see why I waited to decide whether to attach or not to attach more sequins to her hat and skirt. Even though I gleefully abandoned my 60/40 rule on this canvas, I still had to use some restraint. I can hear you all saying, ‘That woman thinks she’s using restraint?’ ‘Yes,’ I say with a smile. On the bottom of the skirt I chose NOT to make fringes that would hang freely from the garment. Again, I think that would create another confusing area on which the eye would focus. By simply stitching the black fringe in basketweave with a satin stitch on top, I think that area is de-emphasized. I am stitching the other colors around the fringe in basketweave. Due to their size and whiteness, the Calla lilies are a primary focal point. I thought that adding the sequins to the hat keeps your eyes keeps moving around the canvas, down to the shawl, down to the skirt, and then back up to the large foreground leaf. This canvas is a riot of color and design and reflects the exuberance of Mexican life I think. Many thanks to Linda Carter Holman who captured that joy of color and design.
I will not be back on the blog until Sunday, April 20th. I hope to finish the Mexican Lady by then so you can see the entire piece.”
Janet in La La Land
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Remember, you may also view this blog entry at my main blog,
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
