Chillyhollow's Plan for the 2009 ANG Auction

Through the kind offices of the designer Kandace Merric and the permission of Needlepointers magazine, I am able to share the instructions and line drawings for the Household Pet Guardian angels with folks who wish to stitch one or more angels for the ANG Auction in Milwaukee in the fall of 2009. Please note that the copyright of these designs belongs to Ms. Merric and the American Needlepoint Guild, so do not share your instructions with folks not working these for the Auction.

There are six Pet Guardian Angels: the Renaissance rat, Medieval cat, Tudor dog, Victorian parakeet, Baroque fish and Georgian rabbit. All the animals are dressed in period costume using colors appropriate to their period. The dog has three head shapes to choose from--the Westie which you see in the model--Ms.Merric raises West Highland White Terriers--a Dalmation and a Golden Retreiver . You don't have to stick to the colors and threads used in 1996-1997 when these were originally published in the magazine. Kandy Merric explains thatshe used cotton perle, Paternayan wool, Medici wool and Kreink metallics in her original instructions because these were easily obtainable at that time. If you have these threads, go ahead and use them if you like, but feel free to play around with other threads and colors. Ms. Merric loves it when a stitcher is bold enough to change colors!

However, I am asking everyone to stitch their angel with the same background color (ecru) using tent stitches. Use either DMC's color Ecru in cotton floss or cotton perle, or Splendor silk in color #961. If you want to use another thread brand, match the color to DMC Ecru or Splendor 961. I think it will be best if everyone trims their angel with Kreinik #32 braid in either gold or silver, as well. These are your constraints--use 18 count canvas, the background must be in tent stitches in ecru, and trim your ornament in either silver or gold #32 Kreinik braid. No matter what colors you dress your Pet Guardian Angel in, the same background color in tent stitch and Kreinik braid trim will make them all look like a set of folk art angels.

Pat Miller and I are working out easy finishing instructions for everyone to follow so that we can all make up our own angel in a similar, but easy manner. Feel free to have yours professionally finished if you like--just remember to trim with Kreinik #32 braid in either silver or gold. Also remember that we all will have to mail our angels to the ANG Auction chair the end of June 2009. That's the deadline and there is no wiggle room for it. I will keep track of everyone who is stitching an angel and let everyone know the address to mail their angel to in a reminder email later on. I will stitch all six designs myself publicly on Blog. Feel free to follow along when I get to your angel. I'm stitching them in random order as one takes my fancy, and hope to do one a month from now until early June.

The Pet Guardian Angels vary a bit in size (they are roughly 6+ inches long and 4+inches high) but they all fit on an 8 X 10 inch size of 18 count needlepoint canvas with margins of roughly 2 inches of unstitched canvas all the way around. The instructions are in PDF form if you don't have the necessary back issues of Needlepointers (see list below). You need to email me at chilly hollow athot maildot com which angel you are interested in and wait patiently for me to get the instructions to you. It won't be right away as I'll wait a week to see how many emails I have to send and organize things so that all the cats go out one day, all the fish the next, etc. I'll post my progress in sending instructions on Blog so you will know roughly when your PDFs should be in your email box. If you have the back issues of the magazine and will work from it, please email me which animal you are stitching and I'll remind you of the deadline for the Auction and where to send your animal as well.

Here are the original dates of the six Needlepointers where you can find the instructions if you have the back issues:

Medieval Cat - October/November 1996

Renaissance Rat - December 1996-January 1997

Tudor Dog - February/March 1997

Baroque Fish - May 1997

Georgian Rabbit - July 1997

Victorian Parakeet - September 1997

Ask any questions you can think of by emailing me at chillyhollow athot mail dotcom or posting a question in Comments. If you just can't see yourself stitching one of the Pet Guardian Angels, never fear--ANG has many styles of canvases that need stitching. Look at the 2009 Auction List (link below) and see if anything catches your eye, then email the ANG Auction chair to make sure it's available.

http://www.needlepoint.org/Auction/2008/canvas.php

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

A Close Look at the Pet Guardian Angels

Here are the six Household Pet Guardian Angels, courtesy of Kandace Merric and ANG's Needlepointers Magazine. There is a cat, dog, parakeet, rat, fish and rabbit.

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

2009 ANG Auction Scheme

I've been thinking about what to stitch for the ANG Auction in Milwaukee in 2009. I rummaged around in my pile of painted canvases, trying to pick something that would bring ANG big bucks and be fun and educational to stitch. (Blog has standards, after all--if it isn't fun and I'm not going to learn anything, why am I stitching it?) I know that very large pieces and sets draw lots of bidders and since I'm not up to stitching a rug for ANG, I needed to find an ornament set I might do that would interest the folks with the money in their pockets.... That's when I remembered the old issue of Needlepointers pictured above.

See those angel ornaments? Those are the Household Pet Guardian Angels, designed by Kandace Merric. (first pet in Needlepointers magazine, October/November 1996). I've always thought they would be a fun stitch but what am I going to do with them? With the dogs and the cat so rambunctious, we don't do a Christmas tree for the holidays. Well, the Auction sounds like a great idea! Then I really got to thinking. Why not invite you all to stitch one of the angels, too? We could have a great pile for Auction! I think if we stick to not altering the stitches and using the same color in tent stitches for the background, they would look great in a riot of colors, sort of like folk art.

Naturally it didn't take long for me to realize that not everyone has a stack of old Needlepointers on their bookshelf. Fortunately, the designer Kandy Merric herself and the ANG Board came to my rescue at this point. They have agreed to let me scan and distribute the instructions for a pet guardian angel to folks who will stitch that one for the Auction.

Kandace Merric has also kindly agreed to stitch two angels herself which will be unique and not one of the six original designs. I am not sure which household pets she will do--a lot depends on how the animal head shapes work with the angel outfits she has in mind--but there will be two mystery angels to join the cat, the dog, the rabbit, the rat, the fish and the parakeet designs in the original set.

I owe a huge debt of thanks to Ms. Merric who has agreed to come out of NP teaching retirement (she concentrates her attention these days on dog rescue groups in the NYC area) to not only allow me to do this project, but to contribute to it herself. I also am very grateful to ANG's President Barbara Richardson, to Sandy Rodgers the editor of Needlepointers who helped point me to the right place for permission, and to Ann Strite-Kurz who contributed encouragement and a contact email address for Ms. Merric. No matter whether anyone else stitches an angel for the Auction, this has already been a huge group effort.

Next time I'll post a bit about the individual pet guardian angels and how I plan to organize this project.


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

Jane Learns Pink Isn't Always Pretty

I've actually made great progress on Squiggee's Japanese portraits. The ladies have all their white skin stitched in the photo above with basketweave stitch executed in DMC cotton perle #8. I had a ball of it I picked up somewhere on sale (along with a ball of ecru and one of black) and decided it would render the white skin of the women in smoother stitches than a white floss. I am happy with how it turned out.

If you look carefully at the faces, you see that the features are outlined in dark gray (4 plies of DMC cotton floss in 318) using mostly half cross stitch. I stitched the gray outlines first, then the skin, and finally the gray features like the noses, making sure not to drag a line of dark gray from one stop to another which might show behind the white.

My first thought was to change the skin color of the women to a pale pink and use a slightly darker pink for these outlines. I often use silk in these situations as the sheen makes the faces more real. I consulted the designer Gail Hendrix, who told me switching colors would throw off the muted color scheme, although she thought I could get away with darker/lighter shades of the colors. So I left the faces and arms dead white and now that the faces and arms are stitched, the white is growing on me once I put aside my pre-conceptions that I needed to make this piece realistic, which it is not. This piece was designed with Japanese artistic sensibilities in mind.

Before I end this, I should mention a few things about stitching with white cotton perle. I stuck to short lengths and tried to remember to keep my needle perpendicular to the NP canvas when I stitched so as not to abrade the cotton perle much. In my experience it looses its shine if you run a length through the canvas too many times. I also discovered it was really important to wash my hands each time I stitched with white thread. The cotton perle easily absorbed the tiniest amount of dirt on my fingers which of course shows as a smudged spot on the canvas.

Before I forget, I have not stitched the red mouths yet. Right now I'm debating whether to leave the area unstitched or not.

Next time I'll talk about choosing a background stitch and thread. Until then, remember that Pink isn't always Pretty! LOL

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

Jane Learns She is Chinese

Once my Squiggee canvas of the Three Women and the Peach arrived, I spent a lot of time looking at it and thinking about how to stitch it. Gail Hendrix, the designer, told me this piece was based on Japanese art, hence the white makeup, the brown background to mimic the rice paper such pieces are often painted on, etc.

At first I thought these ladies might be Chinese so I consulted with a friend who is an Asian scholar to make sure I had their nationality right (Japanese) and to ask about the symbolism and clothing of the ladies. She answered:

"The lady with a peach is highest ranking. A peach symbolizes longevity in both Chinese and Japanese cultures. This kimono would be of silk. Her hair ornaments are gold and silver. She is wearing the traditional geisha wig. The woman with the head wrap is a servant. Her yukata would be of cotton. The other woman is probably the lady's maid. Her yukata looks like it is also cotton but most likely a better quality. Her hair ornaments are most likely lacquer and there appears to be a bow of some type that is probably cotton."

This tells me this piece is all about texture. I'll need to choose the right type of thread to make the clothing of each woman appropriate to her rank. And I decided I wanted an open background stitch in the same brown color (it is exactly DMC #612 for those who are interested) as the canvas itself so that I'd get the correct rice paper effect. When I started testing background stitches, I discovered that the open space above the heads of the middle and right woman bothered me a lot. I wanted to put something there to fill the space, perhaps a window, or maybe a tree branch with pretty Japanese maple leaves, something.

My urge to fill in the negative space amused my friend the Asian scholar greatly. I got a short lesson on Japanese art, their use of emptiness to emphasize what is there and how my urge to cover everything was most like Chinese art.

She wrote, "Westerners are uncomfortable with negative space, whereas Japanese are not only comfortable with negative space, they exult in it. All that negative space is what makes Japanese art so soothing, unlike the wild, tumultuous crowded Chinese art that makes you jumpy. If you are concerned about space, just use the character for woman. Make it blend into the background, which I would do in a linen thread. I love it and it will look a lot like the matsor screens in Japan. You could embroider the character(s) OVER the finished background - just make sure character(s) and background are the same color."

She found the Chinese characters for "three" and "women" (which the Japanese use) and I will embroider those on top of the background on the left side near the arm of the woman with the head wrap. So I'll have a bit of extra in the background without ruining the Japanese feel of the piece that Gail Hendrix so faithfully copied!

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