News, Good and Bad

If you have been following Plimoth Plantation's stitching of their reproduction 17th Century jacket, you will have been a bit shocked to find the museum is laying off staff and isn't going to display it as planned. But they are scrambling to get the jacket finished, are going to have it displayed at two unnamed museums, have transferred the blog describing the action to another owner, and are generally busy as little stitching bees regardless. This thing is going to happen, economy or no.
http://www.plimoth.org/embroidery-blog/2009/03/16/project-changes/

In happier news, Sue reports on the NAN exhibit in Kansas City. She also shares her own entry (second link).

http://sudukc.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/wonderful-world-of-needleart/

http://sudukc.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/my-nan-entry/


The latest award winners aren't up on the NAN website yet but if you aren't familiar with their work, please take a tour. This is a fabulous resource for free patterns and for wonderful pieces of stitching art to explore.
http://www.needleart.org/

If you are feeling a little down with all the things going on in the world today and with the long winter not really over yet, how about we do something totally different and visit with a seamstress in Kyoto? This week she reports on the doll festival that celebrates girl children. It's wonderful, as always, and a good antidote to the blues. The photo above is a Hani Matsuri doll, by the way.
http://www.wabei-mono.com/blog/2009/03/20/and-a-happy-belated-girls-day/

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

New Skirt, No Flowers

My Tudor Dog Holi has the outer skirt almost finished now. This is a four step stitch. First you stitch the framework of steps that makes up the box frames. I did this in an overdyed green medium perle from Gloriana that was an experiment, not an item you can buy. (It was a gift from a dear friend who sweet-talked it out of Gloriana's owner.) Then I filled the perimeter of each box with tent stitches done in Kreinik's 5982, which is a deep green and gold (I used #16 medium braid). The third step was to fill the empty middle of the box with overdyed Kreinik in ThreadworX's yellow and orange #71072. You use a modified cashmere stitch for this.

I've not done the fourth step yet. You are supposed to add a long stitch that reaches most of the way across the box (but not all the way) in a long slanting stitch / in the same thread as the tent stitches that go around the edge. The slant echoes the \ diagonal of the underskirt and makes the patterns flow together visually.

I like how this looks so far and will decide whether to do the last step, and if so, in what thread, later.

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

Head of the Dog, Swedish Ornaments and More

Holi has a halo now, as well as ear, nose and eye touches. The black eye and nose are a few plies of Splendor in straight stitches while the pink inner ear is a few straight stitches in dark pink Designer's Dream. Note how much darker the pink is than the white fur of the ear. I had pale pink Designer's Dream but it didn't show up against the white. I had to remove those stitches and use a much darker pink before the inner ear section showed up. Remember, two light shades often are not distinct enough for the eye to separate them. Ditto two dark and two medium shades. Usually you need to mix light with medium or dark with light, etc.

The #16 braid of gold 002 Kreinik is also a long stitch that was couched down with a little gold Accentuate metallic to make it bend like a halo. I have started the background around Holi's head also. I have continued to add diagonal rows of hearts on the inner skirt. Today I'll start work on the outer skirt.

In other news, I discovered photos of two of Leigh's Swedish Dynasty ornaments which are not on her website. These are the newest ornaments in the Dynasty series, which take motifs from various cultures and use them as ornaments. Here are the official Swedish Dynasty ornaments.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp826x.html

At the January trade show Leigh also offered shops two limited edition Swedish ornaments. I saw them both at Waste Knot when I visited after the Woodlawn show. I love the painted roses pattern, but I know fans of Dalish animals will love the chicken. They both are pictured in the second row of designs here. The deal was shops could buy these at the show but when Leigh ran out, they were gone. I think a shop that got the limited edition ornaments can re-order but you can't get them any other place. So if you are a fan of these, order from Playful Needle where they apparently have both or call Waste Knot which had them both last week. I know, I drooled over the painted roses!
http://www.the-playful-needle.com/Index_new.html

http://wasteknotblog.com/index.php?option=com_dfcontact&Itemid=82

You can see the other Dynasty ornament sets here.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/ImgIdx2f.html

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

Beautiful Bargello

If you are a bargello fan, you must look at the website of Joyce Petschek, author of Beautiful Bargello, artist and tour guide to Italy and London and bargello.
http://www.bargelloarts.com/?page=10

Not all the links work for me at first. Explore and click on everything and you won't be sorry you did. Ms. Petschek does awe-inspiring and gorgeous work. Here's a bit about her book, which is worth seeking out for the lovely charted bargello designs she created.
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Bargello-Charted-Needlepoint-Designs/dp/1570760934

Here's an old interview on the Caron website. The second link is the free project that accompanied the interview.
http://www.caron-net.com/may02files/may02des.html

http://www.caron-net.com/july02files/jul02cla.html

Note to Self: When we win the lottery, we really need to go on the London and the Tuscany bargello tours!

P.S. Liz Morrow has posted corrections to her bargello projects in Needlepoint Now on her blog. If you are stitching with Liz, make sure you print this out and put it with your copy of the magazine.
http://lizartblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/needlepoint-now.html

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

Hearts, Eyebrow Brush, Fur--But Still No Flowers

Holi got fur last night. In the photo above you see the card of white Wisper I used (one strand in a simple brick stitch over two threads) and also my eyebrow brush. The brush was a gift from my friend Mimi to use to make fuzzy threads fuzzier. It is perfect to brush up the delicate Wisper to turn it from somewhat lumpy-looking brick stitch into soft and touchable "fur."

Here is Rainbow Gallery's information about Wisper. Compare the diameter of it in the photo to the purple thread you see. The purple is four plies of Splendor. Please note that RG says to double the strand on 18 count but in brick stitch, it looked too heavy so I only used one strand.
http://www.rainbowgallery.com/jaystips.htm#35

http://www.rainbowgallery.com/detail.cfm?ID=79

I took before and after photos but since the thread is white, you really couldn't see the difference. In person, it is very obvious how much improved the Wisper is once it is brushed left, right, up, down, etc.

I need to add the nose and eye, then sttich a bit of background around Holi's head. The reason I will do this next (as well as another row of diagonal hearts which I added to last night) is to do with the flowers I keep mentioning but not stitching....

Stay tuned!

P.S. If you have the broad Revlon eyebrow tweezers, you might want to see how they are used in gold metal embroicery.
http://thistle-threads.com.mytempweb.com/blog/index.php/2009/03/tweezers/

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