Daily Meditation

My usual nightly routine--
Drive 45 minutes home from work, greet dogs greet spouse hand over newspapers and mail let dogs out tidy kitchen and living room change dog water dish let dogs in clean dogs feet feed dogs put dog bowls away change dog water dish start dinner start coffee pot check laundry put clean clothes in dryer fold dried clothes and put them away check on dinner tidy living room again answer questions about mail check dinner dish out dinner eat watch depressing national news clean up kitchen wash dishes change dog water dish sit in recliner and pull out needlepoint.

Cut 18 inches of DMC cotton perle #5 and carefully and deliberately basketweave background of Pet Guardian Angel Holi until thread is gone. End off.

Put dry dishes away turn on outside lights let dogs out for last night's run and keep an eye on them let dogs in and give them small treat turn off outside lights and turn on lights upstairs put last laundry load away turn on electric blanket and alarm clock brush teeth lay out clothes for work put away next dried load of laundry check washer and dryer for missed socks go back downstairs check email return computer to spouse read newspaper while watching television and talking to spouse finish newspaper and move dog beds to nighttime sleeping spot settle dogs for night.

Cut 18 inches of DMC cotton perle #5 and carefully and deliberately basketweave background of Pet Guardian Angel Holi until thread is gone. End off.

Watch television check dogs are asleep empty trash can tidy living room make thermos of coffee for spouse to finish later climb stairs fall into bed and sleep. Repeat each night Monday through Friday.

You can see why I don't get a lot of stitching done each night. And you can see why stitching a bit each night is essential to my mental health!

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

Arrows for Wings

I made a little progress on my wings last night. This stitch seemed particularly hard for me to get the rhythm of, and I ripped out arrows several times before I was happy with the base line of three medium green arrows. The tops of the arrows are the acid yellow-green color. The gaps at the base of the wings are arrow tips like the acid green ones but turned to face the other way. I plan to do that area in dark green. The spaces between arrows is supposed to be a straight line and I'll probably use the thick Ultrasuede that makes up Holi's collar there. I looked carefully at my stitch diagram this morning and discovered there will be empty spaces that reveal the background between stitches. Somehow this failed to sink in when I choose this stitch but I like how it looks so much that I will do what I always do when faced with a problem--I'll plaster beads over the empty spots!

This stitch is a creation of the fabulously talented Marnie Ritter. She calls it Marnie's Interlocking Leaf-Diagonal and it is diagrammed in the March-April 1991 issue of Needlepoint Plus magazine.

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

Dog Collar and More

Holi's bodice was stitched this weekend. The stitch is a green framework with fancy interlaced cross shapes inside the frame. I mixed two plies of my medium green DMC with one ply of the lime green DMC and stitched the frame with that. The centers are filled with my red Trebizond silk perle. The final touch is gold beads, one at the center of each cross shape and one at the end of each arm of the cross.

I wanted Holi to have an Elizabethean collar for some unknown reason. It just seemed "right" and since I had a sample of red Ultrasuede, I had a thread thick and stiff enough to stitch large lazy daisy stitches which are not tacked down at the tip. That makes the lace part. They are a bit mashed by lying face down on the scanner but you get the general idea.

I've started the wings, using my medium green DMC cotton floss (4 plies). The leaf stitch I'm going to use has four parts, and right now I plan to use my three shades of green DMC floss. I don't know what the fourth color will be but I'm considering yellow, red and turquoise. Stay tuned to see what crazy thing I do next!

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

April 2009 Chilly Hollow Newsletter Article

I noticed quite a few items online this month in various blogs that talk about how small changes can personalize and enhance your stitching. ABS Designs Online (that's Anne Stradal's blog) has a series of very interesting postings this month about her painted canvases and how she and others have changed little things to bring personality and style to the designs. First, Anne is showing off the hair on two of her angel designs. Take a look at the fancy hairstyles! Abigail has brunette bullions.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/02/introducing-abigail.html

The Heart Angel is also a brunette, but she has a fancier style that is smooth on the front side and fancy on the back. Doesn't that give you ideas? It does me!
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/04/dressing-angel-hair.html

Anne also has showcased two versions of one of her small oval eggs. The egg is called "In the Garden" and Anne shows the unstitched canvas and two interpretations in this blog entry. Again, this is food for thought. There really is no "wrong" way to stitch painted canvases, is there?
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/04/interpreting-painted-canvas.html

I've found postings about color and how they change a design at Jan Fitzpatrick's wonderful blog and at the British Japanese Embroidery Center's blog. Jan has stitched a Laura Perin charted design with different colors, which turned the original into a totally new design.
http://threadmedley.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/choosing-colors-for-a-project/

Jane writes about color in Japanese Embroidery, how it is used, and what colors mean to Westerners and Japanese. She has posted pairs of designs in various colors to show how a change in color changes the traditional designs students all stitch. So besides tweaking a design to add your favorite hairstyle or a different motif, think about what changes in color you'd like to introduce. As Jane says, there is no right or wrong, just different interpretations.
http://japanese-embroidery.blogspot.com/2009/03/colour-in-japanese-embroidery.html

I'd like to add that changing small things in a design personalizes it and adds a bit of your own personality to a design. These changes allow us to interact with the original artist and collaborate with him or her in a unique piece of stitching.

Jane, wishing everyone lovely spring weather from Chilly Hollow

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
mirror blog at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com

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

Enter Brenda Hart, Girl Genius

Do you remember when I was working on the Joan Thomasson Wizard Santa for Christmas that I used some of the new Baroque Silk for the silver beard and for the black felt slippers Santa wore? Baroque Silk is a lightly twisted perle silk thread, suitable for 13 count canvas as is, but you can also untwist the plies into three sections and use 1-2 of them on 18 count. Which is what I did on the Wizard Santa. Here are good photos of the colors available for this thread.
http://www.needlestack.com/WebStore/Thread/TPP_BaroqueSilk.html

Barbara Bergstein's blog has photos of the red Baroque Silk she is using on her tropical fish project. The second photo shows the red Baroque Silk in its tiny skein and the third and fourth are closeups of Barbara holding the entire strand and then the separated plies ready to use on 18 count.
http://createneedlepoint.typepad.com/create_needlepoint/2009/03/tropical-fish.html

My conclusion when I stitched the Wizard Santa using Baroque Silk was that the grays were pretty but nothing different than any other thread for beards, and that the white bits that show up when you untwist the black ply make it not a good choice for 18 count canvas. I had to stitch over sections of the black Chinese slippers to hide the white bits. I suppose the thread is twisted and then dyed, so the dye doesn't penetrate the whole thread, giving a slightly shaded area or even a white streak when you use a ply or two of the whole thread on 18 count.

And there my opinion rested. Until Brenda Hart arrived, picked up Baroque Silk and worked her magic.

My friend Janet takes a regular class from Brenda Hart at Needle Nook of La Jolla. Janet's stitching a large piece and Brenda came up with a fabulous border for her design which Janet told me about. Janet raved about the stitch and thread Brenda told her to use and even sent me a skein in blue with a matching metallic to try it out with. The thread was --you guessed it!-- Baroque Silk.

I looked at my brand new skein of blue Baroque Silk, remembered that Brenda Hart wrote the stitch dictionaries I use all the time, thought about what a good stitcher Janet is, then took a deep breath and tried to copy what Brenda taught Janet on a sample of canvas. Luckily I had some of the black and gray Baroque Silk still I used last fall (it was borrowed from Pat, who is as big a threadaholic as I am) and tried all three colors in various combinations on my 18 count canvas in just the way Janet instructed.

This is what Janet said Brenda Hart told her to do--First, take a length of Baroque Silk apart into its three separate strands. Then carefully lay the crinkly strands in a long diagonal line of five separate stitches, not pulling the threads so tightly that the crinkles disappear. Follow this with five diagonal stitches in a matching color of metallic thread. Then repeat, alternating between the Baroque Silk and the metallic threads, for the entire border.

You get a marbled effect with the Baroque Silk, and the metallic contrasts with the matte silk beautifully. It is GORGEOUS. In the photo above you see my blue Baroque silk paired with a blue Sparkle Braid, some of my gray Baroque Silk with silver Kreinik stitched beside and on top of the gray stitches, and some of my black stitched in a long figured stitch next to black Kreinik in the same stitch slanting the other way. I also added a length of my blue Baroque Silk with one end unraveled and the other as it comes off the skein so you can see the difference.

Speaking of the black Baroque Silk, I should mention that this shows up fancy stitches beautifully if the stitches are long ones as in the test stitches I used. There is a lot of shine to it which will enable us to stitch fancy stitches in black and not lose the detail that normally vanishes when you stitch in black. The trick is to use long straight stitches to give the Baroque Silk room to reflect the light.

I was wrong about Baroque Silk. Use it in the right circumstances paired with its soul mate, metallics, and you have something really beautiful. Note that I discovered that on 18 count, you only need two of the three strands that make up one ply of Baroque Silk. Janet's piece is on 13 count, so she needed all three of her strands to cover.

Janet kindly sent me a closeup of her Baroque Silk & metallic border.


The color isn't true on this piece (I tinkered with the image to make it easier to see the stitches) but it shows what an elegant side border Baroque Silk mixed with metallic threads makes. This is Melissa Shirley's large large armadillo canvas. It is on 13 count so Janet used all three plies of the Baroque Silk to add a lavender section outside the wide bird-flower-tree branch border.

Many thanks to Janet Moyer for drawing this to my attention, forcing me to try it with threads she provided and sending a photo for you to see, and to Brenda Hart for graciously allowing me to reveal one of her tricks here.

Brenda, you are amazing!

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