Jane Goes Insane

So I was walking around the Internet one day, minding my own business, when I discovered the Shining Needle Society. It's a Yahoo Group that organizes cyber classes from various famous teachers in the NP world. You join the group and you get the announcements of upcoming classes which you can take or not, as you please. One of the classes has an "open" classroom, which means you can sign up for the emails from the class whether you actually are stitching it or not. The class is for Mystery in a Corner by Gay Ann Rogers. It's a big piece and I know my limits but I signed up for the emails so I could listen in. I have a lot to learn about counted thread and Ms. Rogers is a dynamite teacher.

I've enjoyed watching the photos of the mystery piece appear and hearing about the choices people have made while stitching this piece. I've been thinking it would be fun to try some of the same things on a small piece, and Gay Ann Rogers has been reading my mind. She's got a new little ornament chart package available. It's called The Challenge Ornament. You can see it here.

http://www.gayannrogers.com/site_2/Small_Designs_.html

Yes, I bought the design. (Gasps of horror from the peanut gallery!) It arrived in the mail Friday and yesterday (Saturday) I made a trip to the little counted thread shop that is closing. Most things are half price so I thought I'd kit out this piece from whatever they had left. The closing sale has been going on for a while and I'd be scraping the bottom of the barrel in some respects but that just added to the Challenge.

The first challenge on the spot at the shop was when I realized that overdyes aren't on sale. No way am I paying full price for them, so I decided I would just wander around the shop and find the three types of thread I need (an overdye, some perle, and a thin metallic) for the project in colors that would coordinate well. I can fake an overdye quite well. Remember the Sundance Indian Woman in a Blanket canvas? All the "overdyes" there were faked.

But before threads, I needed NP canvas. I've been watching the Mystery in a Corner canvas photos from a ton of people doing that piece and I preferred the bright colored ones (particularly the one on black canvas) that have a lot of contrast between colors and the muted ones that are all shades of one colorway.

I gave up on shades of one color right away as I didn't find enough variations on a single color I liked to make this work for me. As I said, the shop thread choices are limited as stock is sold off. So it was high contrast colors for Jane! And you know what that means--black canvas. (More gasps of horror.) You know how much trouble I have counting charted designs and black canvas is hard to see on. BRING ON them challenges!

Ok, black canvas in hand, I wandered around. The threads above are what I came up with. I have --left to right--Petite Treasure Braid metallic in light green (PB57), Pebbly Perle in lavender (P50), three cards of Splendor silk floss in teal blue S865, teal green S880, and light lime S1058, and a spool of Kreinik blending filament in blue 006. I've got two thin metallics, three silk flosses, and a cotton perle. The colors blend well with the purple for a muted background and the lime for a punch. I may not use both metallics or I may mix them.

Here's what I've done with my threads.



My challenges here were figuring out what colors to put where. I studied the finished photos of this piece on GAR's website and blog, deciding what patterns seems to stand out and what didn't, then decided I wanted the muted purple in the center and on the lacy sides. The middle box seems to be prominent on all the stitched samples, so I mixed my teal colors there to fake an overdye. The lime is the middle part of the center block of three squares to add a bit of punch. By the way, this piece has a name. It is now called Insanity Improv.

This really is going to be a challenge and a nice break while I figure out what I want to do with the Joan Thomasson wizard robes. Prayers are gratefully accepted!

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

Speaking of eBay

Mentioning Squiggee's eBay store reminded me that I noticed the Joan Thomasson Holiday Spirits wizard canvas I'm stitching for sale on eBay this week. I don't know if anyone wants to pick this up and stitch along with me, but here's the link--

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=320284522672&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=011

or Tiny URL

http://tinyurl.com/5cjlnm

Signed,
Your Master Enabler, whose main blog is at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Introducing the Squiggee Koi Framed

I took photos of my little goldfish in his shadowbox frame this morning. I had trouble with reflections on the glass even on a cloudy morning in the shade with the camera flash turned off. Makes me wonder if the glass is UV protective--in my experience that glass is hard to photograph well. I didn't notice anything on the label when I bought the shadowbox. Oh, well, at least you can see the pattern on the fabric that covers the foam core mat in this photo.



Thanks very much for custom painting this for me, Gail. It's now available through Squiggee's website to anyone who needs a little koi in their life.

http://www.squiggeedesigns.com/

You might find it in the Squiggeeland Needlepoint eBay store occasionally, too.

http://stores.ebay.com/Squiggeeland-Needlepoint

Or bookmark this page and come visit anytime!

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

Goldfish Primps for the Fair

I haven't stitched anything this week on the wizard because the county fair starts Sunday night. This means I am busy putting the finishing touches on the two projects I'll exhibit at the fair--Squiggee's goldfish piece and Lani's Autumn Leaves.

The photo above is all the framing supplies for the goldfish. You can barely see the gold shadow box that he will go in on the left. On top is the spool of metal braid trim right above the paper xerox of the canvas I cut out to use as a pattern, the acid free foam core mat with a hole in the middle that will be covered in the blue fabric you see, and a piece of craft foam and a very thin sheet of metal that will go under the canvas.

Let me explain further. Framing is expensive so I headed to the local crafts emporium to pick up supplies in a standard size. The goldfish has pearls for his bubbles, so any frame needs to have depth so I can put glass over them. (I always glass my framed pieces since we live on a dirt road and don't have air conditioning. Dust is constantly coming in the open windows in nice weather.) So I bought an 8x10 shadow box frame, picked up an 8x10 scrap of acid free foam core, a spool of thin gold metal braid, and bought a packet of thin metal for embossing in the scrapbook section. I had the shop cut a hole in the middle of the foam core the size of the goldfish. All this cost me about $36, not too bad for framing.

I lugged it all home and got to work. First I cut a piece of fabric about 12x14, large enough to cover one side of the foam core, ironed it well, and glued it right over the foam core (I put glue only on the back as it bleeds through the fabric). Then I took my best embroidery scissors and poked a hole in the fabric over the hole in the foam core. Cutting carefully from the center of the hole towards the outside edge, I made an X and then more cuts to have a series of petals I could fold to the back side and tape down. Once that was done, I had to let everything dry (it's all glued to the back of the foam core) overnight.

I concentrated on making a very nice Chinese knot in one end of my trim. The trim I choose is made from real wire bits and it unravels itself if you don't put Scotch tape over the ends, so this was a bit tricky. The best instructions for a simple knot I found are here.

http://www.satincord.com/knots/buttonknot.htm

The next night was gluing the braid all around the center of the hole and then cutting my metal sheet (with scissors you use for paper, it is very thin aluminum that cuts but will dull your good scissors) to the size of the design. I also cut out a piece of acid free foam that is used for signs (cut red letters from it and glue to a green sheet of it and you have a sign for a kid's bedroom door) to the same size. Then I glued the metal circle to the foam circle. This will go behind the goldfish to give a mirror-like effect behind him with a lot less weight and expense than a real mirror. The foam is padding that raises the "mirror" and holds it in position against the NP.

The next step will be to tape the NP canvas to the foam core covered in fabric, put the mirror and its padding behind the canvas, then drop the mat/goldfish/mirror with padding stuff in the back of the shadow box frame and put the cardboard backing on.

And you'll have a goldfish in a frame!

The finished photo will be revealed tomorrow. The sky is too cloudy to take a good photo of the finished piece today. Tonight I'll work on Autumn Leaves.

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

Stitching a Geisha

This lovely painting by Suzanne Tornquist has been transferred to needlepoint canvas and is for sale on eBay this week. Here's the auction--

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=120291004220&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=002

She's a beauty but before you buy, read the details and study the photo carefully.

This is sold as a 14 count canvas but you can get larger count, which to me says that this is probably going to be a silk screened or transferred design onto NP canvas.

If you are thinking about picking up a piece on eBay --which is home to a ton of transfer designs--you need to think about several things. The first is how much trouble a silk screened or heat transfer canvas is going to give you. If not knowing exactly what color is on a particular canvas intersection drives you nuts, avoid silk screened canvases like the plague!

Do you like working on 14 count or do you want to try it? If you really need 10-12 count, it looks like you can have this size made for you, which would be a reason to bid.

The auction doesn't say if the 14 count canvas is interlock or Zweigart or another type of NP canvas. You may want to find out before you bid if this is important to you.

The auction does say that this design is an "exclusive copyrighted image" which makes me think the artist licensed this to be turned into a NP canvas. Many silk screened or transferred image canvases don't have permission and very often these turn up on eBay. I've seen rip-offs (or counterfeit) Melissa Shirley designs on eBay and I'm sure that some of the people selling these things ignore copyright. I wouldn't buy anything I thought stolen myself.

How well will the design tranfer to the grid of a needlepoint canvas? Look at her mouth and eyes. Will the curves there translate well to NP?

Only you can answer these questions for yourself, but think about them before buying a silk screened canvas. I'm not saying don't buy something as gorgeous as this. I'm just saying think before bidding.

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