More Hearts, No Flowers

I've continued to add diagonal rows of hearts to Holi's underskirt. In order to anchor the nylon perle and Trabizond silk perles I'm using for the hearts, I started putting the tent stitches (yellow Splendor floss) around each row. That seems to hold the slippery nylon threads better. By the way, the purple heart on the right which isn't done yet is a hand dyed thread Odette sent me from South Africa. It's a very nice nylon perle, dyed an intense purple, that is even easier to work with than my Patina. I have to double it, as it is around the size of #12 perle, but I do like it a lot. The thread is from House of Embroidery and the label says is it rayon and 100% Viscoss. The color is #34 Lavender. Here is their website.
http://www.houseofembroidery.com/h_page.asp

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

Holi, The Tudor Dog

I just started on my 5th household pet guardian angel, the Tudor Dog. If you've been following all of us stitching this series to auction off in Milwaukee at the ANG Auction this fall, you know two other Tudor Dogs are done. Pat has been busy with hers
http://needleartnut.blogspot.com/2009/02/we-have-wings.html

and Margaret just finished hers.
http://cranecottage.com/stitchingblog/?p=876

Note that my dog and theirs all are different breeds. This outline drawing had three different heads so one could customize their angel to their liking.

My dog's name is Holi, after the Festival of Color in India last week. I didn't want to stitch my dog in the same beautiful colors that Pat and Margaret used. Inspired by a photo of crepe paper flowers from last years' Cince de Mayo celebration in California, I decided to use a riot of color. When I discovered the festival on the day I started my dog, well, it was meant to be!
http://www.holifestival.org/holi-festival.html

Here's more color inspiration from our friends in India. Holi's got a lot to live up to!
http://artnlight.blogspot.com/2009/03/kerala-truck-graphics.html

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

Happy St. Patrick's Day! UPDATED

I celebrated by arranging a power outage overnight that turned off the alarm and made me almost an hour late to work, so I have no blog entry for you today except to send you to visit Laura Perin, who is celebrating the Day of the Irish with a wonderful series of postings about her Celtic designs that started last week.
http://two-handedstitcher.blogspot.com/

You'll want to browse a bit, then head to Anne Stradal's blog to see her Celtic penguin.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/03/happy-saint-patricks-day.html

Everyone wear green for me today!

UPDATE: Squiggee has a slide show of shamrock-themed pieces on her blog you won't want to miss.
http://squiggeedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/03/happy-st-pattys-day-to-all.html

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

The Renaissance Rat With Lace Collar and Halo

I finished the Renaissance Rat this weekend by adding a gold metallic belt (The #16 braid is couched down with matching gold in the #4 braid), a wire halo wrapped in the gold and then the red and gold Kreinik (which is a bit mashed in the photo since she was laid face down on the scanner for a picture), a gold lace collar made with my #4 braid in three rows of blanket stitch, a shiny black nose and eye in black metallic Cresta d'Or, and a little fancy gold stitch on the sleeve using gold Accentuate.

She was a lot of fun to do in the various metallic threads, the nylon Patina and the red silk Trebizond, and of course the lovely browns in Impressions.

Next up, the Tudor Dog. I also have to do the Georgian Rabbit but I decided to do the dog next since I had an eye about the colors I wanted to use for the dog.

Before I forget, Nordic Needle has a lot of threads on sale. Browse the link to see if the brand you prefer has a color you need listed.
http://www.nordicneedle.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=NN&Offset=&Category_Code=L06-00-00&ph=&pl=&CpField=&CpValue=&show=&SortBy=id-asc&Search=

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

March 2009 Chilly Hollow Newsletter Article

If you love traditional oriental rugs, I have some wonderful resources for you to explore.

Anne Stradal is going to adapt a traditional Kyrgystan bed hanging to NP.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/03/exploring-distant-land.html

She already has turned more traditional oriental rug patterns into NP.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/03/magic-carpet-ride.html

Jan Fitzpatrick is busily creating her own rug from motifs she has taken from Moroccan tiles. She's also worked up smaller patterns from henna tattoos.
http://threadmedley.wordpress.com

If you are at all interested in trying this on your own, I have three books in my library to recommend to you.

The first is Janet Granger's Miniature Needlepoint Carpets. This paperback book by a dollhouse miniature artist has 25 rug designs charted, from a tiger skin rug to an Art Deco style rug to dollhouse carpet runners. The introduction talks about how to design your own pattern and outlines how to stitch and finish a dollhouse carpet.

Frank M. Cooper's book Oriental Carpets in Miniature is also miniature rugs but this paperback concentrates on charting oriental rugs in various authentic styles. His chapters are grouped into Turkish Rugs, Caucasian Rugs and Persian Rugs. Each of the 24 charts has a brief description of the region where this rug style originated. The rugs are beautiful and more elaborate than the Granger ones but they are also harder to stitch the designs are for traditional oriental rugs only.

Finally, the immortal Maggie Lane has a book of rug charts that has very beautiful designs. Her book is called Chinese Rugs Designed for Needlepoint. I would love to have one of these! Her graphed rugs are adaptations of Chinese motifs into rug patterns and she does talk about how to finish your own rug. There are only ten designs in the book but reading it brings her personality to life and you will fall in love with Chinese rugs as you read what she has to say about them.

Needlepoint Fun has a book and several miniature rug kits for sale on their website.
http://www.needlepointfun.com/pix7.htm

To wrap up, let's visit Access Commodities' rug adventure. Perhaps there is a similar magic carpet in your future?
http://www.accesscommodities.com/orderforms/aMagicCarpet.pdf

Jane, who loves oriental rugs in CH

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