Ring Attached to Canvas (with Blackwork and Painted Canvas Lessons)

Last night I attached my ring to the top of my metallic ornament hanger. All I did was couch it down with my vintage gold Treasure Ribbon, being careful to cover the gold paint on the canvas with my stitches and by positioning the ring itself carefully. If I was going to finish this piece as an ornament, I wouldn't attach the ring at all. I'd wait until finishing and have the ring sticking out of the top of the finished ornament for hanging but since I plan to have this framed, I wanted to do it this way. There is no one "right" way to stitch things like this. You do what works for you.

In the category of NP news, Old Wold Designs in CA is going to do a introductory class to painting your own canvas. Since a lot of folks are interested in this topic, check out the class and see if it fits your schedule if you live in the area. The wisteria window design is very pretty!
http://www.oldworlddesigns.com/classes.html

Tanja Berlin has added two new blackwork kits to her website. There are two pages of designs as one set is intended as an introduction to blackwork specifically for those used to doing cross stitch. The other page has more advanced designs. Tanja does beautiful work so even if you don't want to stitch blackwork, you can admire what she has created.
http://www.berlinembroidery.com/whatsnew.htm#relaxation

http://www.berlinembroidery.com/blackwork.htm#pheasants


Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Ring-Topped Dragon

Ch'ing has a metal ornament hanger top now! Last night I choose two other golds that look good with the vintage gold-colored Treasure Ribbon I used to outline the scales of our Chinese red dragon, then used long tent stitches to do vertical lines of various colors on the hanger top. I worked top down on row one, then bottom up on row two, etc., starting with a regular tent stitch followed by a row of elongated tent stitches over two threads instead of the normal one. The last stitch in each row was a regular tent stitch. Each row is a different shade of gold.

For the golds I used Treasure Braid TR83 for the regular gold (in 8 strand size--this thread comes in 4 strands, 8 strands or 16 strands so you can put it on any canvas count from congress cloth to 13-14 count); Treasure Braid TR81 (8 strand size) for the yellow gold; and Petite Treasure Ribbon in PR30 for the dark vintage gold. I left the ends of each gold thread on top of the canvas so you could compare the various shades of gold. The vintage gold and the yellow gold are on the left side and the regular gold on the right.

In the photo you see the finished ornament top and the ring that goes on top in its little package that came with the canvas. I think you are supposed to put the looped end on the back side of your canvas and thread the open end through a hole to the front, then come back down on the other side of the metal ornament top, go back through a hole there and then fasten the open end into the loop to close it. If you then tied down the top of the loop with a couched stitch, it would stay in position. I was a bit too tired to tackle this last night, so I put the canvas away and added a little more red lettering to the endless boring border of Cape Cod Dogs instead. I am close to half done with the border. Hopefully I will finish it before Ch'ing is completely done.

Tonight I'll attach the ring and continue work on the dragon's head. I've started the head but decided it would be better to talk about the dragon's head and fins in logical order, not in the order I stitched them.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Head of a Dragon, Body of a Snake

Last night was spent basketweaving the black border around Cape Cod Dogs but I finished the body of Ch'ing the red dragon from Leigh before starting Even More Basketweave and want to show this part of the design off.

The sinuous snake-like body of the dragon has red, orange and yellow scales outlined with gold. Some of the gold areas widen to become gold scales. I didn't want to lose the lovely shading and I didn't want to tent stitch the whole body, either, so it took me some time to come up with an idea that would give me the slightly wet look of snakeskin. Here in CH we get to inpect snakes fairly often (mostly the very small and very pretty tree snakes who live around us and who sport a gold ring around their necks) and all their bodies look shiny and wet. I wanted this look for Ch'ing.

I first stitched the gold lines in tent stitches using Petite Treasure Ribbon from Rainbow Gallery. This is a shiny metallic ribbon, thinner and narrower than ribbon floss, that is easy to use. Like all ribbon threads, it does twist and turn as you stitch with it but since the twists expose the vintage gold-with-black color of PR30, I didn't use a laying tool as I stitched. Please note that Treasure Ribbon comes in two widths--Petite and plain Treasure Ribbon. I used the Petite as this is an 18 count canvas. If you are curious about Petite and regular Treasure Ribbon, look at the Rainbow Gallery website.
http://www.rainbowgallery.com/colorcards.cfm

Remember I said that some of the gold lines widened to produce gold scales? When I got to these areas, I only stitched the outside edge. I left the centers unstitched. When all the gold outlines and the red or orange or yellow scales were stitched completely, I added tiny gold faceted beads from Sundance Designs to the center of the gold scales. My tube isn't labeled, but the gold shade of the beads and of the Petite Treasure Braid is similar. Matching the color is more important than using the same brand of beads.

Adding the beads were the last step. The next to last step is filing in the orange and red and yellow scales with long diagonal stitches using three colors of Water N Ice--red WT5, orange WT4 and yellow WT3. Water N Ice is a slightly transparent ribbon thread. It looks like strips of heavy Saran wrap. To see more colors, go to the Rainbow Gallery page listed above. The smaller photo on the right shows some gold outlining, a few of the red scales stitched and a cluster of gold beads in the center of a gold scale.

In most cases I used slanting diagonal stitches to fill in. I worked the two sides of each mostly oval shape first, then put a long stitch in the middle overlapping the sides slightly. In this case, I did use a laying tool to keep the thread from twisting. The look is wet and slick, just like a real reptile.

I did lose some of the beautiful shading by topping it with this thread but I did see changes in some of the orange scales especially depening on how dark the orange paint underneath was. In a few cases I mixed orange and yellow thread in one scale where the paint clearly used both colors. I am happy with the look which gives Ch'ing the Manchu dragon a solid body that stands out from the checkerboard background.

The next challenge will be to heavily pad the dragon's head so that is even more prominent but before I work on that area I'm going to stitch the metallic hanger on top of the ornament.


Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Pet Guardian Angels Start to Appear in Chilly Hollow

As you know, I stitched all six of Kandace Merric's pet guardian angels from the 1996-1997 Needle Pointers magazines for the ANG Auction. I am only one stitcher of many, however. Other angels are being stitched so a set of 15-20 of them will be sold in Milwaukee at ANG's auction night during the annual seminar. I very cleverly volunteered to coordinate the project so that all the angels would fly to Chilly Hollow for collection and packaging and a photo shoot so that all participants and Kandace herself have a document showing the set before they fly away to their new home with some lucky bidder. If you are going to the Milwaukee Seminar, I hope you'll visit the pet guardian angels on display just before the auction and that'll you'll bid for them.

Here are the five that arrived last week so everyone can enjoy them, too. The photo above is Marita's fantastic red and gold Dalmation, straight from a firehouse! Marita told me a bit about her pet guardian angel's backstory. "Dorothea Barker Winks (Dottie to her friends) is a retired firehouse dog. Her middle name is not any type of statement about her personality. Since she is a good Southern girl from Virginia, her mother chose a family name (actually Grandmother's maiden name) for her middle name. As you can guess, red is her favorite color. She is not one for lots of adornments because after all she worked at the firehouse (also her stitcher really hates to mess with beads). She really does appreciate the bright and shiny colors (red and gold) because they remind her of the fire engines that she so loved to ride on."



The next pet guardian angels are from Carole. The details on these two are amazing.I wish you could see the cunning buttons on the Medieval Cat

















or the perfect stitches on the Tudor Dog's autumn colors and braided trim! I don't want to part with these two at all.
















The final two angels are from Pat who dressed her Tudor Dog in the same white, royal blue and gold of the original model using delicate stitches and a very pretty wing pattern.














Her Georgian Rabbit's lovely blue eye and graceful head caught my eye first, then I realized how beautiful the lace trim, the bows and the floral trim are on this piece.


It is going to be very difficult to mail these away to the Auction Chairman!

I'll post more photos as more angels arrive.



Jane/Chilly Hollow
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Most Boring Border and a Question

I'm trying a canvas rotation as I stitch Ch'ing, the Leigh Chinese Dynasty ornament. I'm also working on Needlepoint of Back Bay's interpretation of Cape Cod Dogs by Elizabeth Mumford. I decided I would work on the border of Cape Cod Dogs as it is done mostly in basketweave. As you can see, I am almost half finished basketweaving the border background. I'm using Impressions, a silk/wood blend from Caron in the color 0020 which is black. It's a lovely thread, one strand of which covers on 18 count nicely. It's dull and mindless work, but rather soothing to do at night when I'm tired or while I'm thinking about the next fancy stitch for Ch'ing.

To liven things up a bit for myself, I am also tent stitching the red lettering in the border, using my red Hi-Lights #H614, the same thread I used for the metallic Scotch Stitches in the background of Ch'ing. (Good thing I didn't use it all up doing Ch'ing's whole background!) It is perfect for the words around Cape Cod Dogs. It is sparkly but not too shiny. I want the letters to be visible but not so loud as to take attention away from the dogs and mermaids at the bar. Once a person looks around and spots the details (the view out the window, the fact that the women at the bar have tails, the little liquor bottles and the glasses, etc.) then I want them to find the lettering and laugh.

One thing to consider when doing lettering that wraps around a border is that you have to keep the tent stitches oriented toward the right side of the canvas. No turning the canvas to have the letters readable and tent stitch them in that orientation!

To liven things up here a bit more, I took photos yesterday of the day lilies that line the driveway to the house as they are really looking great this year. We've had a cool and wet spring and summer up until last week (and rain is predicted for today) and they are very very happy. Hope you enjoy the slide show I made on the left side of the page right under the "Prayer for Stress Free Travel" icon from Sundance that's the canvas of the day.

Which reminds me--do you like the Canvas of the Day feature? Or does it just clutter up Blog? I have to admit with a canvas of the day, a slide show, the ANG Auction slide show of the pet guardian angels and my two current projects shown, the lefthand side of the page is getting cluttered! What do you think? Should I drop anything that I have there now?

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow