The Battle with The Background

I've been busy with the background for Three Women and a Peach this weekend. It was a puzzle, as backgrounds usually are. First, I had to ignore my instincts and not plaster a tree limb or window in the background like I did with the Joan Thomasson wizard--remember the phoenix and the flagstone floor I added to that design? In the case of the wizard it grounded the figure in a setting but in this case I need to restrain myself in order to not violate the artistic intent of the designer.

Then I had to find a stitch that was inobtrusive but added a bit of texture to mimic the rice paper background that would be used by a Japanese artist. I also wanted a thread that matched the background color, which is not ecru, but brown. I got lucky there-DMC #612 is a perfect color match. So I had my thread and just needed to play around with various background stitches.

My test stitches (on the extreme right) and the stitch I settled on are in the photo above. I used a variation of Willow Stitch which I call Skinny Willow. I found Willow Stitch in the Stitches for Effect book (the first one) by Suzanne Howren and Beth Robertson, page 53. Willow Stitch is three vertical stitches, each over six threads, followed by three vertical stitches over two threads, and then the three vertical stitches over six threads, etc. The short vertical stitches are centered between the pairs of long vertical stitches. I decided this was too wide for my canvas--there's not much background, after all--and came up with the Skinny Willow variation which has two pairs of long vertical stitches plus two pairs of short vertical stitches. This stitch is worked in a horizontal line across the widest area of your design, then you work up or down from there. You can see in the photo I worked up from the base line. I hope to finish working down from there today so that I can move on to something a bit more interesting than background stitching.

The Skinny Willow stitches are hard to see because they are in one ply of my DMC #612 in the background canvas color. So I will diagram them for you on black plastic canvas in bright colors.



The first row is purple Felicity's Garden (a silk/wool blend) and the second is three plies of orange Needlepoint Inc. Silk. You can see how the long/short/long/short pairs of stitches interlock as you work them. You can also see how plies twist if you don't use a laying tool! This isn't a problem for me with one ply of DMC cotton but I did take greater care to make sure things lie flat on the real canvas.

Again, I found Willow Stitch in the Stitches for Effect book (the first one) by Suzanne Howren and Beth Robertson, page 53, then used it to come up with the smaller version above. You can always modify a stitch to suit its circumstances!


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

The Missing Bear Found and Other Thoughts

Remember Susan and the missing piece to her TS Designs bear? I'm happy to say that she has the missing piece now and is dancing all around the locked and guarded room that contains the bear pieces. She says to tell everyone thank you very much and to remind you that if you take your needlepoint along when you are doing holiday travel this month and next, keep a careful eye on it! Susan's adventure wasn't all that much fun, even though she tried to keep her spirits up and there was a happy ending.

As for my changes to the list of blogs on the Blogspot blog, I've reverted to uploading them all manually. Even then there are blogs that won't display, probably because the ability to send out a feed is not enabled by the blog's owner. Blogspot only allows me to display twenty-five blogs and the list is set to display only the ones with recent blog entries. There are more I follow and if they post anything more recent, they will replace a blog with earlier postings.

Finally, Thanksgiving is next week (eeeek) and I will be away for several days. Don't worry if you visit Blog and don't find me there--I'm off eating turkey sandwiches and playing video games with my nieces. And handing over the Joan Thomasson wizard and the Maggie mini-stocking of the cat in a hat to their new owners.

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

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