Jane Has Gone Stitching

I've Gone Stitching. While I'm working this week I've been listing to this New Jersey shop's Internet radio program. It comes out each Monday and there are six episodes to date. I'm listening to the interview with Julia of Julia's Needleworks right now. What fun!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gone-stitching

I'm also over at Marianne's blog, "Needlepoint in the 21st Century," collaborating with her on a cute 4x6 piece of what may be the Loch Ness monster. It is going to be fun, even if Marianne is already referring to me as Groucho....
http://needlepoint.storeblogs.com/2009/08/10/where-i-crow-a-bit

Not to worry. With the Internet I can be all these places and still home at night working on Cape Cod Dogs!

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

The Face That Launched A Thousand Headaches

The littlest mermaid has a face and curly red hair now. The face gave me fits. I stitched all the skin first, thinking I would then add the features but nothing worked. So I ripped it all out and restitched in my darker skin tone color since I was out of the medium shade, but I didn't stitch over the painted eyes and mouth and nose. The dark face looked odd but after I added the straight stitch of a nose (one ply), the green eyes (some of the mermaid tail dark forest green) and a little red mouth, then outlined the chin with brown and added eyebrows, she looked better. I took one ply of my lightest skin color and overstitched the dark brown tent stitches of her face and she suddenly looked better. Give her hair in French knots using the red boucle, add a few straight stitches in the boucle to give her longer hair on her shoulders and there she is! Sorry about the long green thread. I didn't realize that had fallen on the scanner but I don't have time to correct this or I won't get this article written!

As you can see, I've been working on the little dog's face (he has brown eyes and a brown nose now) and the larger mermaid's tail. After completing the first pass of the Helen's Lace stitch (where I omitted stitching the central stitch in each horizontal or vertical set of stitches) I went back and added it in another thread - the sparkly green/gold/black Glamour #2500 by Madeira. This is a sewing machine thread which is a soft metallic made from six plies twisted together. The ends come untwisted in the needle's eye but you just leave an extra length of tail in the needle's eye and cut off the unraveled bit when you tie off this thread on the back.

After that, I have started stitching over the areas where each diagonal row of stitches meet with my dark green Petite Treasure Braid #PB53 and attaching a blue/green Magnifica bead (Mill Hill bead #10079) over where the Madeira thread stitches meet with the same thread. Do you think it is too sparkly? In person it livens up the piece which Margaret said was getting too dark, not realizing that the entire design is dark. I have carefully matched the colors of the painted canvas to my threads, so I am stitching this as painted. It is the inside of a bar, after all. The only bright spot is the window and the liquor bottles behind the bar which are in the sunshine of the window.

I hope to finish both mermaid tails tonight. After that I need to do the tarty blonde's hair.

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

History Through Needlepoint (with Skulls)

Needlepoint is one of many historical embroidery styles. It happens to be **my** favorite but there are many more. Those who would like a history vacation centered on embroidery will want to "express interest" in the tour of English embroidered jackets and costumes that the Plimoth Plantation reproduction jacket folks are setting up.

http://thistle-threads.com.mytempweb.com/blog/index.php/2009/08/announcing-a-jacket-study-tour-of-england/ 

 History buffs may enjoy browsing this site that specializes in Arts & Crafts style embroidery. (Please click on Framed Needleart to see some wonderful finished examples for sale.) If William Morris' embroidery is a favorite of yours and you've never looked at Beth Russell's needlepoint kits, click on the second link and enjoy. These kits are first rate, although the designs are either stamped or silk screened on canvas. 

http://paint-by-threads.com/shop/ http://www.bethrussellneedlepoint.com/

If you are more into the curvy Art Nouveau style (related to the styles above) how about this? I choose Water Lilies from here to illustrate this blog entry. 

http://www.art-stitch.com/bourgaize/cat-ff808081172580e501172f3401f42990.html

If you enjoy exploring your favorite historical period through needlepoint painted canvases, check out some of these designs-- Elizabeth I (I think the designer is Designing Women) http://www.needlepoint.org/WhatIs/1998/Bodien.php 

If you want to stitch like Mary, Queen of Scots, this company reproduces some of her known pieces for needlepoint. 

http://www.sewexciting.com/?page=shop/view&category_id=47d7abf64882d498ca0aa53c50b664ab

Melissa Shirley has all sorts of fun canvases of women from history, ranging from Marie Antionette to Betsy Ross and even Calamity Jane. http://melissashirleydesigns.com/gallery/?cat=64 

here are more realistic portraits available. Here is Tapestry Tent's Henry VIII- http://elainemagninneedlepoint.stores.yahoo.net/kinghenryviii.html

How about a stylized King Arthur? 

http://elainemagninneedlepoint.stores.yahoo.net/nust.html 

Is Egyptian history fun for you? 

http://elainemagninneedlepoint.stores.yahoo.net/phardynkin.html http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp822x.html http://www.theneedleworks.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21_100&products_id=231 http://www.amybunger.com/catalog/item/6278007/6754081.htm

I promised skulls, so here they are--A Dragon's Tale has their new Halloween designs on their blog and there is a skull and crossbones canvas for those into pirates (that's historical, right?) Plus they are having a sale! You can't order directly but you can ask your local shop to get the catalogue so you can browse and place an order through them. http://adragonstaleneedlepoint.blogspot.com/search/label/Whats%20New%3A%20Halloween

And by coincidence Judy Harper has posted some new Halloween outlines to copy and use and there is a skull and crossbones pattern there. If your kids are driving you nuts in these last weeks before school starts, maybe one of them would like to stitch this.... 

http://needle-crafts.blogspot.com/2009/08/halloween-time-motifs-for-projects-in.html

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! (or at least a martini) http://www.amybunger.com/catalog/item/6297823/6259691.htm

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

Preparing for the Trip to the Hairdresser

I have to prepare for a trip to have my hair done. For one thing, it is a long drive and I have to make an appointment at a time when I can take off work since the person I use doesn't work Saturdays any more. Then there is the endless debate--do I wash my hair right before I go or not? How much should I have cut off? And there's always a bit of anxiety. Will I like what she does to my hair?

I'm preparing for a trip to the hairdresser's for Cape Cod Dogs, too. I have picked out some threads and tentatively decided that the larger mermaid will be a bleached blonde with roots showing and long, straight hair. I plan for the smaller mermaid to have red curly hair.

So I bought some threads (since according to the eternal law No Matter How Much Stash You Have, You Will Not Have Everything You Need to Finish a Project) to achieve this look. You see the results of my shopping above--I have a blonde and a brown thread in Vineyard Silks, the classic silk that looks like wool line without the metallic mixed in, and a skein of overdyed red boucle, which is the nylon thread used in Brazilian embroidery. I also put my new Needle Bling cat magnet back in the package so you could see it. The threads and magnet are lying on the color copy of the canvas which I'll need to help me with the next step, which is not the hair but the facial features. I need to stitch them in first before I put hair around them. Besides, those blank faces are pretty creepy!

The other preparation I need to do before the hair was finishing all that skin and working on the mermail tails (progress photo above). I was curious about how the larger mermaid's tail would look if I used two plies of my blue/green Soie d'Alger mixed with one ply of Treasure Braid in sparkly dark green to stitch the lighter areas of the tail. The stitch is diagonal mosaic, slanting one way on one fin \ and the other way / on the other. I just had to turn my canvas on its side to get the / slant. Easy. So here's a photo of my progress on the mermaids. I planned to work left to right on all the figures sitting at the bar: large dog, large mermaid, sailor, small mermaid, small dog. But in the end I am finding it easier to work on the pairs of similar figures simultaneously which means the sailor will be the last figure stitched.

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

Tanned Skin

As you can see, I'm stitching away on the mermaids. I was a bit tired to count out the Helen's Lace stitch on the tails last night or to do all the compensation necessary, so I switched to tent stitching skin last night, using the more tanned shades from my Splendor Design Collection of Bronze Porcelein skin tones (silk floss from Rainbow Gallery in a set that will mimic tanned skin). I didn't notice it last night but when I took the scan this morning I realized that the little mermaid's shading is too stark a contrast and her arm resting on the smaller dog's head is too jagged. I'm going to have to do some ripping out to replace the darker skin with something a bit closer in shade and to smooth out the arm.

I have (thanks to Waste Knot in Arlington, Virginia) some tarty red hair thread (overdyed red boucle) and some bleached blonde hair (blonde and brown roots in Vineyards silk). And courtesy of Needlewoman East in Falls Church, VA, I have a new tiny Needle Bling magnet, a Hello Kitty style silver cat face with a red crystal flower above one ear. I'll make sure the magnet shows up in the next photo I take. I didn't leave it on the canvas in this morning's scan as I don't like having a strong magnet next to any computer equipment and can't have anything bumpy on the canvas I'm trying to put flat on the scanner bed. I should mention that the photos you see of Cape Cod Dogs are all cut off because the canvas on its frame is larger than the scanner's window. But I'll take a photo instead of a scan so you can see the magnet. Although I was tempted by the multi-colored apple and the darling blue crab, I went with the cat. Meow!

Cape Cod Dogs' design is 12 inches by 12 inches on 18 count canvas, which is really a bit too wide to fit on the 8 1/2 x 14 scanner bed, especially with two inches of bare canvas all around the perimeter of the design.

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