Mending the Rabbit Geisha with a Weave (and Water)

I have been rather busy (i.e., no stitching H-Q rows of the May stitch on Glittering Kimono) with the Rabbit Geisha's burned places.  Yesterday I showed you the patched areas.  Look back at the very last photo in yesterday's blog entry and you will see that there is a distinct dip in the burn hole area, with the scorched canvas well above the patch on the back side. Any stitches put on top of this are likely to have a dimple in them because there is a hole.  So I used another technique to handle this problem--weaving.

Patching is not the only way to mend canvas.  You can also pull away a thread from the edge of your canvas and weave it across the area.  In the photo above you'll see that I have done this.  I used a #20 needle so that the loose canvas thread would go through the eye and wove the thread to build up support.  I also started my background stitch over the burned corner area, just to see how it would work up.  First, I did two rows of basketweave outside the painted canvas area.  This stabilizes the patches a bit more and also will be useful in finishing.   However, another problem cropped up as I worked.

Look very carefully at this close up of the same photo.  See where the burned NP canvas threads broke as I stitched through them?  This is one reason I put the patches on the back.  I had no idea how stable the scorched canvas would be.  Before I did any more stitching, I grabbed my plant mister and sprayed the canvas.  (The thread I am using for my background stitches is DMC #794 and since most DMC colors are pretty stable--except for red and very very dark colors like navy and chocolate--I risked the color running.)  Once the burned canvas and the patch were damp and more flexible, I continued stitching the background over the burned corner.  The more flexible damp canvas (I didn't get it really wet, just flexible) took the stitches better and this morning when the spot is dry I don't see any more broken stitches.  There might be some under the stitching and the patch, though.


This photo shows what the corner looks like stitched.  Note that some of the brown burn shows between the stitches.  Someone asked (Was that you, Nancy?) in the Comments if I planned to repaint the burned area.  The answer is no.  I have no idea how burned canvas will take to paint or a marker so I won't risk that.  We'll see how prominent the burned areas are after stitching.  I may scatter beads on top to distract the eyes (beads hide a LOT of sins!) or maybe the finisher will use trim or something similar to hide this.  We'll worry about it later.  The first step is to get the background stitches in successfully.

The final photograph also shows that I pulled out my woven canvas thread and restitched it vertically instead of horizontally to better support my horizontal stitches.  I made sure to dampen this area and to soak the thread I was going to weave with to make it very flexible.  I also added another row of tent stitches around the outside as I realized that I had miscounted the background.  I didn't want to compensate.  Besides, three rows of tent stitches are probably better for the patched areas as that is where the finishing stitches will go.

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

Vandals in Chilly Hollow

Yesterday's photograph of Brenda Stofft's Rabbit Geisha is from her website.  There's a good reason for that beyond the fact that my scanner won't scan entirely a piece that is 7x13 on stretcher bars (which adds 2-3 inches all around), but if you have a weak stomach, you won't want to look at the photo of the canvas above.

This beautiful piece was a gift from a dear friend and I didn't know it was coming in the mail.  Much to my surprise the mail lady showed up at the house one day with an opened mailing box in hand, telling my husband she'd found the package she'd put in the mailbox the day before lying on the side of the road, ripped open, the wrapped contents set fire to by a match, and dumped in the ground in disappointment that there was nothing worth stealing, I guess.  The match and the ribbon that tied the canvas in a roll were in the bottom of the box but the tissue paper was burned away almost entirely.  Some of the canvas was damaged by the fire as you see above.

I was really sick about this, particularly since it was a gift, but the lovely lady who sent this to me briskly told me to pull myself together and not let the sick person who did this win.  So I put the canvas away, determining that I would stitch it and make a masterpiece out of it.  Fortunately there is no burned smell and the damage is repairable.

Here is the bottom of the design.  The three burned areas are in the top half, and the one edge that is charred we can forget about as it will be cut away in finishing.  None of this area is damaged.

But the two burns at the top must be dealt with.  First of all, I patched the burns.  This photo shows the burned hole with a patch in place.  I cut some spare canvas that is the same 18 count size in ecru (I wouldn't use a dark color of canvas for this unless the original canvas is also dark) in a shape that would cover the worst area, then lining up the holes exactly, I stitched it in place using long stitches that I can pull out later.  The second patch is lying on top on the right so you can see the general shape I'll use there.  That is not burned through but the canvas is charred on the back so I want to reinforce this area.  I am not framing this piece as I have no idea what being sealed in a frame might do to a burned piece of NP canvas.

This photo shows both holes patched. The thread tail ends are on top of the canvas so I can easily pull out the stitches when I am ready.  I will need to be careful to pick a stitch that covers the background completely to make sure the patches are secure.  I considered trimming the background around the rabbit geisha but consulted with my finisher who says it'll be easier to use this as a tote bag design if she has squared off edges to work with.  So I am going to use the patches to reinforce the canvas and patch the hole.

I have patched canvases before and never had one separate (my first spliced canvas was done as an experiment in around 1989 when I stitched a glasses case for my Mom who has carried it in her purse for decades without any problem) but you can't do light coverage or very dimensional stitches that are mostly on the front of the canvas instead of going through the holes in these instances. You have to secure the two pieces by stitching right though them both.

I will make sure I do two rows of tent stitches all around the outside edge of the blue painted background to help secure the patches futher.  That way the finisher can trim the patch away if necessary.

By the way, the mail lady now brings any boxes we get to the top of our driveway and leaves them in the open garage.  Both the post office and the sheriff's office told me there was nothing they could do to track down the vandal.

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

Introducing The Rabbit Geisha

The next painted canvas I am going to stitch is designed by Brenda Stofft.  I call it the Rabbit Geisha.  Brenda has the Cat in a Kimono also, which is similar but wears more elaborate robes.

Here is Rabbit Geisha (7 inches wide by 13 inches high on 18 count canvas) and then Cat in a Kimono (slightly larger at 9 inches wide by 16 inches high on 18 count canvas).
http://www.brendastofftdesigns.com/P4170159.JPG

http://www.brendastofftdesigns.com/IMG_0099.JPG

The reason I mentioned both pieces is that Jane in Alamo City is stitching Cat in a Kimono after a class with Tony Minieri helped her figure out how to handle the canvas.  If you are curious about Cat in a Kimono, I know you'll enjoy visiting Jane at her blog and watching how she handles this design.  Just scroll down the right hand column until you find the Category called "Brenda Stofft Cat in a Kimono." Click and enjoy!
http://janew1102.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Rabbit Geisha is going to offer an unusual challenge, which I'll talk about tomorrow.

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

South Seas Fiji is Finished

Or is it?  I need a sunny day to take this Dynasty Ornament outside and check to make sure I didn't miss a stitch somewhere and that I covered all the painted palm fronds with stem stitches.  But we've had cloudy, overcast skies for the last two days.  So I did a big scan to see if I found any problems that way and I did not.  Often a scan or a photograph will reveal a cat hair caught in my stitches or a stitch I missed or another mistake that the naked eye just doesn't see.  I've noticed that one becomes so familiar with a piece you just don't notice things, like the fact that my first sky stitch was too big for the piece.  You get used to a piece and stop seeing the details.  That's another argument for a stitch rotation.  Switching back and forth one sees problems a lot better than stitching one piece at a time.   However, I know that I become so focused on a piece that I forget about the other piece in my rotation.  That's why this took two months to stitch.  Most of the time it was waiting for me to finish up Cape Cod Dogs.   So my next piece will probably be a large one that I focus on exclusively until it is done except for time outs to work on Glittering Kimono.  I've started the September stitch there (it's a mystery piece with a new section diagrammed for you each month) and am still working away on May.

While stitching South Seas Fiji, I relearned this lesson about paying attention to our stitching courtesy of Liz Morrow who first mentioned in the Comments that the sky stitch looked too large.  Scale is very important in needlepoint and if Liz hadn't spoken up, I wouldn't have noticed that my sky's too big.  I also relearned the lesson that just because one stitch is lovely (and the original sky stitch, Ming Variation is lovely) doesn't mean it is the right stitch for the piece you are working on.  This lesson was reinforced by the problem I had on the right side of this piece.  I originally did a light coverage couching stitch on the sea foam green parts of the fabric half of this design.  When I added tent stitches to the black areas, they made the sea foam green sections look sunken.  I had to rip out the couching stitches and do something else so that the two halves of the right side of this design were balanced.

In the end South Seas Fiji was all about achieving the right balance of elements in a design.

Please note I have not stitched the top metallic hanger and loop on this piece.  I plan to frame it inside a circular mat so that this area is hidden.  If I can't find the right frame and decide to finish it differently, I'll go back and stitch the area, but if it is going to be hidden in the framing, it is better that it is not stitched.  South Seas Fiji will be put away in the Awaiting Finishing pile for now. The next sunny day I'll take her outside for inspection and the next time I am at the best local frame shop I'll search for the right frame and choose a mat.

I hope you enjoyed stitching the second of my two Dynasty Ornaments by Leigh Designs.  The designer told me that these are created to be fast, easily stitched designs and I've certainly found this to be the case.  Here are the rest of the Dynasty Series to date for your browsing pleasure.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/ImgIdx2h.html

http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp826x.html

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

Next, Add Tree

Once the sky stitch was the proper size to look good with the rest of my South Seas Fiji design, the only things left were the tree and the metallic hanger at the top of the ornament.  I've decided that I want to frame this piece with a mat cut out in a circle so that looking at South Seas Fiji is like looking through a peephole.  It should be a glimpse at Paradise in my mind.  So I won't be stitching the top of the ornament.  I'll probably just put a row of tent stitches all around the perimeter.

That leaves the palm tree fronds unstitched.  I started them yesterday but didn't talk about them.  Donna, that's why the top of the tree looked so faint yesterday.  I had just started the stitching and didn't make that clear in what I wrote.  If you look at yesterday's photo, you can see the darker fronds stitched with a ply of the same dark forest green Splendor (#S907) I used for the tree line in the background.  I am doing stem stitch for the fronds.  It gives me a thin line since I am just using one ply of silk.  I topped the line and filled it out with a strand of dark green Petite Treasure Braid #P853.  This adds sparkle to the tree while the dark silk underneath gives a shadow.  It takes a long time to stem stitch the fronds with such a thin thread but I think building up the fronds slowly works best.

In the photo above you can see that I've started working on the lighter colored fronds using a medium green Splendor in color S906.  Once I finish all the fronds (using the color copy of the plain unstitched canvas as my guide) I will go back and add a ply of Sparkle Braid (a thin metallic strand similar in size to my Petite Treasure Braid) in color SK08 on top.  Then I will have to decide whether to use an even lighter color of Splendor to add more highlights and shadows.  I'm playing with color and texture here, trying to make the palm tree memorable and realistic, too.

Wish me luck!  I'm going to add three more threads to my thread stash count....

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