Speaking of Blogs

I'm following along as several blog writers talk about painted canvases they are stitching. It's fascinating! Are you into Halloween? Then you have to see what Michele of Bristly Thistle is doing with this Tapestry Tent/Susan Roberts canvas!
http://bristlythistle.blogspot.com/

Is football your favorite television program to stitch to? Then you are going to love what Lynne Segill at Wellesley Needlepoint did with a Julie Paukert canvas of the Patriots' stadium outside of Boston. See the smoke coming from the guns? How about that sky? I never would have thought to do sky and clouds in the same rectangular Woven Ribbons stitch!
http://wellesleyneedlepoint.com/ExclusiveDesigns.shtml

Judy Harper is having a great time stitching a Squiggee mermaid. Isn't this a great canvas!? And it is small, too. You could stitch this before Christmas. Read the last link first. This is a blog, with the latest link on top of the list.
http://fairy-crafts.blogspot.com/2008/11/swimming-with-mermaids-again.html

http://fairy-crafts.blogspot.com/2008/11/joy-of-painted-canvas.html

http://fairy-crafts.blogspot.com/2008/10/mermaid-getting-started.html

When you don't have time to stitch yourself, a visit to see what other folks are doing is both inspiring and doesn't take that much time out of your day.

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

Fix That Hem

Yesterday I left the Medieval Cat with a blue line along her hem. To fix it, first I covered the line with continental stitches, the tent stitch variation that does well in vertical lines. Because the background tent stitches are in #8 perle cotton in the light colored ecru, they didn't quite cover and the blue line peeked through in places. If I'd been using an ecru wool, I probably wouldn't have this problem. Some threads are more elastic and cover better. If I'd been using DMC's #5 perle, the largest size after #8, it might have been ok also. And if the background had been navy, the blue lines might not have been noticeable.

But I didn't use a fatter or more stretchy thread or a darker color, so I had to cover up the problem. The photo above shows my first attempt. I laid a long line of silver Kreinik in #32 braid at the base of the skirt right on top of the blue line. You don't see it in the photo (I wanted you to see the blue line peeking from under the tent stitches) but I then put a line in gold under the red part of the skirt. I had planned to couch these down with a matching gold or silver blending filament but I didn't like the overall look. So my first attempt failed.

Not to worry, I am always full of ideas! I actually like mistakes because fixing them brings out my creative side. I have done my best stitching to fix problems.


Here's my second attempt. I stood the cat on her hem and stitched red and blue lazy daisy stitches along the base of the hem and covered the line that way. I like how this looks. It's not obtrusive and gives a nice decorative effect. In fact, I think I like this better than the plain hem that is intended for this angel. This is a cat from Medieval France according to the instructions. I can't see a French cat with a plain hem!

I may do something like this on another angel's hem. I also might try tracing the outlines for another angel onto my NP canvas with a hard pencil (4-6 hardness) as the instructions say. Who knows? A hard pencil might take good photos and not make me come up with neat tricks to hide my mistakes!

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

Jeweled Cuff and Beaded Jacket

This next photo shows the Medieval Cat in the Household Pet Guardian Angel series with her jacket beaded and the lower skirt finished with gold and silver Kreinik in the centers of the trellis of diamonds. You can also see the jeweled cuff next to her paw. And you can also see the trouble I'm going to have at the hem of the skirt. See where the pattern ends right before the blue outline? I stitched the background tent stitches in DMC #8 perle cotton (color Ecru) right up to the line but not over it so you could see that I should have turned the cat onto her head and started the pattern of diamonds so that they covered the blue line, not stopped just before it. Why? Because the ecru tent stitches won't cover the blue line completely. (This is why I recommend that you use a light gray or yellow marker, not the blue I have to use for you to see photos of my canvas.) You will be able to see bits of blue between the stitches. I'll talk about what I did to take care of this problem later. If you look carefully at the cat's head and paw, you will see how fuzzy that area is and can anticipate what I ran into when stitching the tent stitched around those two areas. Of course you now know to tent stitch around any areas you plan to make fuzzies. Except for these two looming problems, she looks very nice, though!

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

Changes to Blogspot Layout UPDATED

UPDATE: It's become obvious that the list of blogs doesn't update properly. Blogs that have new postings don't automatically show up on the list, which sort of defeats the purpose. Right now I don't see a pattern in the updates, especially since some blogs that don't show up here are hosted by Blogspot. You'd think that they'd certainly be able to capture updated blogs on their own service! I'm going to watch this for a few days before changing how the list of blogs works again. It is possible that the blogs that don't show up don't have something enabled on their end. I'm also looking into why I can't post comments to my own blog. That's new just within the last week. Problems, problems! Anyone want to glare at Blogspot for me while I fiddle with the settings? Thanks.

I've made a few minor changes to the layout of Blog here at Blogspot. The list of blogs has been changed to display the needlepoint blogs I follow using Google Reader. However, only the five which have been recently updated are shown. I decided it would work better to give you only a few blogs that have new material than the whole list, some of which rarely are updated.

I've also removed the Canvas of the Day photo and replaced it with a photo of the original model of the Kandace Merric Household Pet Guardian Angel I'm stitching. You'll be able to see both the Squiggee painted canvas I hope to work on each weekend, and the current pet guardian angel I plan to stitch after work during the week. I find it nice myself to have a reference photo as well as the snippet of whatever someone is currently blogging about. I hope you like this also. Once all six pet guardian angels are stitched, I'll go back to a Canvas of the Day posting in this slot.

None of these things are possible with the Yahoo 360 blog so you won't see them there. Thanks for being patient while I re-arrange the virtual furniture.

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

Step Two: Stand the Cat Up UPDATED

One of the very interesting things about this series of ornaments is how the designer uses the same stitch turned at a different angle to indicate different sections of the pet guardian angel's robes. This photo shows how the oriental stitch on the jacket is turned two different ways to show the parts of the jacket. No matter what angel you are stitching, study the photos and diagrams carefully to see whether your angel stands on its head, feet or side when you stitch each section.

You can see in the photo above that the cat has to be turned to stand on its hem to stitch the two parts of the robe. The skirt is done with three different types of threads in three steps--trellis outline, fill in the edges of the center with thread #2, fill the middles with thread #3 to make the shapes inside. This brings up a dilemma--how do you decide what threads to substitute for the originals if you plan to change things?

The original model which you've already seen was stitched with DMC #8 perle cotton, DMC floss, Kreink's B lager Braid #8 and #16, DMC Medici and Paternayan wool. The jacket was done with two colors of floss and two colors of #8 Kreinik. I decided to use Petite Very Velvet and beads instead. Beads can always substitute for one metallic stitch and I wanted a plush jacket. The fur on the jacket was originally the Paternayan, so I found 2 skeins of Felicty's Gardern in colors that matched my red and blue Petite Very Velvet. Felicity's Garden is a silk/wool blend and a lovely substitute for Paternayan if you don't need something that wears like iron. The wings were in perle cotton as was the skirt except for the Kreinik metallic #16 braid in gold and silver for the decorative shapes. I'll skip over the wings for now to talk about them in detail later. Looking at the skirt, I saw that it had three steps: framework in #8 perle cotton, outline around center diamond in floss, and centers in gold or silver. I kept the centers in the same thread and size but used red Frosty Rays and blue Soft Sheen Fyre Werks to do the shading inside the diamonds. The diamond trellis framework was stitched using the Petite Very Velvet used in the jacket.

I chose threads that could do the stitch ok (don't try to do a Rhodes Heart, for example, in 17 strands of floss, it's too hard!) and that would tie the design together. (Use the same thread for the jacket and robe-Petite Very Velvet-and use the same red for the fur trim as in the jacket and robe.)

It's trial and error but if you test stitch and experiment a bit, you'll be surprised and pleased at how much fun it is to put your own threads and color choices into a design.

UPDATE: Beth wanted to know where I used the Felicity's Garden and where I used the Petite Very Velvet since she was a bit confused. Blogspot hasn't allowed me to respond to Comments for two days now so I'll update this entry in case other folks are also confused. Beth, I used the red and the blue Petite Very Velvet for the cat's jacket and long skirt. The red and the blue Felicity's Garden will be used for the fur trim on the jacket and on the wings. It's not visible in any photos yet, so stay tuned.

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