The Missing Triangles in the Background

Several folks asked about the four missing triangles scattered across the background of spilt pavilion stitches on the Rabbit Geisha canvas.  Those were left empty to be filled in later, either with beads or another thread.  Above you see the top half of the canvas which is stitched except for the last row.  I've been working this at night, working my way to the left side so that I know exactly where to stop. As you can see, the pattern needs me to go outside the blue painted area by one thread so I don't have to compensate.  Now that I know where to stop I can work the three rows of tent stitch outside the left side.  I left that edge undone until I could work my way across the entire background and now where to stop.

You may have to enlarge the photograph to see the triangles which I stitched with a strand of Rainbow Gallery's Silk Lame Braid #SL13 Sky Blue.  In person they really sparkle although because the four areas are scattered, they don't overwhelm the Rabbit Geisha.

Silk Lame Braid is a mix of silk, rayon and polyester that looks like plies of silk twisted with plies of metallic. It is a very pretty thread meant for 18 count NP canvas, although they say it will look good on 16 count also.  (There is a Silk Lame Braid #13 meant for 13-14 count canvases.  The colors below are available in both sizes as far as I know.)  It looks very nice in long stitches that showcase the silk/metallic mix  and is perfect for scattering spilt pavilion halves across the canvas.  Here are the colors available in Silk Lame Braid.
http://www.rainbowgallery.com/detail.cfm?ID=1149

http://www.rainbowgallery.com/detail.cfm?ID=1190

http://www.rainbowgallery.com/detail.cfm?ID=1214

You'll notice I didn't do a Canvas of the Day stitch ideas entry today.  I've discovered I don't have time to do a regular blog entry and a Canvas of the Day entry, so I'll save the Canvas of the Day stitch ideas for days when I don't have things to show you otherwise.  There are only so many hours in the day, sadly!

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

Another Canvas of the Day for Fall

Today's Canvas of the Day is from Melissa Shirley.  It's on 13 count canvas, something I don't stitch on much, so you will have to figure out the number of strands or plies to use on your own.  I'm not certain about this part myself.  The canvas is 11 inches high by 14 wide, and is in a primitive style.

http://www.needlenookoflajolla.com/storedir/proddetail.php?prod=ms811&cat=41

Make a black and white copy of the canvas and also a colored copy of the canvas.  Put these aside for now and stitch the background and the vase.  Use non-shiny threads (DMC floss or Mandarin floss or crewel wool or Impressions) for the blue background and do  a broad horizontal stripe in straight stitches across the top of the design.  Make the width of the stripe the same width as three of the stripes on the red and white bowl.  If the red stripe is two threads high and the white stripe is 4 threads high, then make your broad blue stripe 2+4+2 or 8 threads high to match the height of three stripes on the bowl.  Skip 8 threads of background and do another broad blue stripe over 8 threads, continuing down to the bottom of the canvas with a broad blue stripe, nothing, another broad blue stripe, nothing again, etc.  If the empty canvas stripes bother you, tent stitch that area using the same thread as the broad blue stripe.  

Stitch the stripes on the bowl, using satin stitch done vertically.  They would look good in perle cotton which will be shinier than the threads you've used so far.  Try #8 perle since this is 13 count canvas.  If that's not covering, go up a diameter to #5 perle cotton.

Now stitch the bird legs, the flower stems and the tiny leaves, all in tent stitches using a thread that is not really shiny.  If you hate tent stitches, you may do the stems in a slanting satin stitch across their width.

Now do the large leaves in split stitch using a pretty wool/silk blend like Vineyards Silk.  Cover the entire leaf in medium green, then switch to a sharp needle and do the dark green veins right on top of the lighter green.  If you are feeling fancy, use silk or cotton floss for the darker green leaf area.  If not, use the same brand of thread as you used for the light green under part of the leaves unless it is unusually heavy and thick.  Then you'll want to switch to a lighter weight thread for the dark green veins.

The flower petals are next.  Just stitch the yellow petals using straight stitches across their width and shortening the length as you work from the base of the flower to the arched top.  If they look a bit ragged to you when you are done, backstitch or couch a thread around the outside edge of each petal.  I would use a non-shiny thread here although a shiny silk would be pretty.


Now stop stitching for a bit.

Using the black and white copy, cut out the black bird in the foreground, the centers of each of the three flowers (pencil in right, center and left of the back of each flower center when you cut it out so you know which is which), and the tail and then the head and body of the back bird.  Use the paper patterns to cut out felt or Ultrasuede birds in black, then the three flower centers.  Keep each flower center pattern pinned to the matching fabric so you know which flower center goes on the right, etc.

Using a sharp needle again, applique the flower centers to their correct place on the canvas.  To do this, pin each in place, then button hole around the perimeter of the felt or Ultrasuede.  (Felt is cheaper than Ultrasuede but neither fabric will unravel so choose what you can easily find.)  This will take a while.  Use a ply or two of DMC cotton floss, matching the color of your flower center fabric or going a shade darker for contrast.  Once the flower fabric centers are all in, take a beading needle and attach clusters of green beads in the right place on the fabric, then do individual red beads. Check your color copy for placement of the beads. Beading needles are sharp so you will be able to slowly push them through the fabric.  Attach the beads using the same thread you used to buttonhole the flower centers onto the canvas.  If you don't like beads, find flat buttons that are the right size and attach them on top of the flower center fabric.  Use three of a kind or mix it up, depending on your own taste.  Just look for buttons that are the correct size (take your color copy with you to the fabric store to shop), a color you like and which have holes so you can stitch them on.  Use the same thread as you used for the buttonholed edge to attach the buttons if you are going that route.  

Now it is time to applique the black bird pieces to the canvas.  Just used little stitches all around the outside of the bird fabric shapes about  2 mm in from the edge to hold these in place.  You can buttonhole instead but the shapes are more complex and I'd be tempted to simply use little straight stitches to attach everything.  If you are feeling fancy, stitch the curved outline of a wing onto the bird in the foreground.  It will be barely visible on the black but it will help hold the bird fabric onto the canvas without puckering.  Once the fabric birds are securely on, use black thread to attach white beads for the eyes. 

I'd make this into a picture for a dining room or country kitchen but a pillow for your favorite kitchen rocking chair would also be fabulous.

Remember, these are just ideas for a painted canvas to tempt you to try it.  There are no guarantees that the ideas will work unless I've actually stitched a canvas since photographs can miss details and sometime things just don't work the way you think they will.

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

Canvas of the Day for Halloween and More

Today's Canvas of the Day is a small Melissa Shirley piece, one of her vintage holiday postcards.  These are always fun and pack a lot of detail into a small space.
http://store.apneedlearts.com/catonpumpkin.html

The border is easy.  Alternate black mosaic stitches stitched with Petite Very Velvet (or you may need regular Very Velvet to cover, I can't say without testing) with orange cotton floss in the same stitch slanted the other way.  Stitch the background in a soft gray thread without much shine (Impressions or Vineyards Silks would be nice) except skip the white dots.  They should be beads or perhaps tiny metallic cross stitches.  You can even make them silver or gray instead of white if you prefer.

The easiest way to do the pumpkin is in tent stitches in three shades of orange.  Go with silk and don't stitch the black areas of the eyes, nose or mouth at all.  Left empty, then emphasize the empty hole inside a carved pumpkin.  If you are feeling fancy, try stitching the pumpkin in vertical columns of slanted (on the side) or horizontal (in the middle) padded satin stitch.  This will make the shading harder but if you can pull it off, it'll be spectacular.  Tent stitch the inner part of the eye hole, and do little triangles for the teeth in slanted stitches.

Tent stitch the cat in a matte black thread using the same brand (Vineyards Silk or Impressions) of silk/wool blend as the gray background.  The witch's hat should be silk to contrast with the cat's fur.  The orange squares on the hat scream for a metallic stitch (long stitches to make the rectangle sides) with a black bead in the center.  The bow tie should be split stitches, shaded and in the same oranges as the pumpkin except for one lighter pumpkin color.

Use a glow in the dark orange for the eyes mixed with the black silk of the hat and top stitch the whiskers, nose and mouth.  Note the mouth should be the darkest orange you have mixed with a touch of red floss, silk if you have it.

In Rabbit Geisha news, I'm still working on the background.  As for those who are asking about the missing triangles scattered among the split pavilions, wait and see!

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

Bunny Ears, Before and After

Yesterday I showed you a large photo of the Rabbit Geisha and talked about the problem I was having stitching the area between her two ears.  Jeanne put it best in the Comments when she said, "Even though the count may be correct, compensating a large-scale stitch in areas like this just looks distracting. Tent stitch seems like a good choice!"  I hadn't realized that the scale was off viewing the split pavilion between the ears, but Jeanne is right.  

Compare this shot to yesterday's without enlarging and you may not see much difference but close up there is quite a change.  To the left is the Before shot of the geisha's ears when I stitched split pavilion there.

And on the right is the After shot with basketweave between her ears.  When you are several feet from the canvas, the basketweave disappears and all you really see is the smoothness that blends into the surrounding split pavilion.  Yesterday before I pulled out that area and restitched it, the choppy nature of split pavilion in this small area make it stand out and look like a mistake.


Scale is really important in stitching painted canvases.  You have to pick the right-sized stitch for your area and sometimes that means switching to another stitch if you have a tiny area to compensate. 


I've seen several elaborate floral canvases with decorative backgrounds where the fancy background stitch ends just before the flower petals' fancy stitch begin, and the margin between background and flower is done in tent stitches, normally in the background color (but not always as sometimes the flower petal color looks better in tent).  


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

Canvas of the Day: WICKED!

Today's Canvas of the Day is one of the new Wicked series of witches from Leigh Designs. This piece is one of six witch canvases, all done in pairs so that each witch has a sibling with a similar face and harvest moon in the background. All of the witches are on brown 18 count mono canvas and they are all pretty big -- 11 inches by 14 inches.



All of the series can be seen here.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp512x.html

I choose the Wicked Elfrida as my Canvas of the Day because I love the skull on her hat. I think that would be fabulous stitched in Kreinik's glow-in-the-dark thread, shaded with gray silk. Or use all silks for a more subtle shine. Leave the skull eye sockets and nose hole unstitched and add one ruby red bead in the middle for the eye. Use an oval stitch to cover the moon in light coverage, picking the lightest shade of gold from the moon for your thread. You can use DMC cotton here, just one ply, and it'll look fabulous as the shading will show through. You will have to lay the thread, though, for the best effect.

Tent stitch the hat in blacks and purples with something gorgeous like Vineyards Silks to give a slight shine to the wooly felt of the hat. Then do the purple ribbon in as many shades of purple silks as you need to match the lovely painted shading, using diagonal long stitches to cover. You'll need a laying tool as you want maximum shine for the ribbons.

Couch the stems using either the new Memory Thread from DMC that is wired or try couching a Kreinik metallic brown thread with a matching blending filament for some sparkle. The leaves can be done in either tent (the small oval ones) or in diagonal mosaic or even herringbone. Use a matte thread like Mandarin floss or cotton floss or even a nice wool blend like Burmilana for the leaves.

Pad the berries and then do small long stitches on top to make them a bit dimensional. I'd use silk here to make them shine.

The flyaway hair could be a thin wool or Burmilana or one of the fuzzy threads like Alpaca or Cashmere. Use a sharp needle and stem stitch to put these strands right on top of the tent stitches of the witches' hat.

Elfrida's pasty skin should be tent stitched, using perle cotton or a perle silk like Trebizond, or if you can't find the right colors, try blending DMC cotton in shades of white and gray and grayish purple. I'd consider leaving her nose until last and padding it in long stitches over something like half a Q-tip like Amy Bunger does. But this isn't necessary. If you want to try the "Bunger beak," practice on some scraps first and see if you like the look.

Now the background. It occurred to me that it would be fun to cover the background with the word Wicked repeated over and over again, either horizontally or vertically, your choice. Match the canvas' brown color using whatever non-shiny thread you can find. It might be even better to find a slightly lighter or darker shade of brown, depending on how subtle you want the letters to be. There are lots of free charted letters available on the Internet. I happen to like Barbara Bergsten's versions here.
http://www.barbarabergstendesigns.com/stitch_guides.htm

This is not a real stitch guide, not done in any particular order, either (although I'd probably stitch the background, then the moon, then the witch's hat, then the details starting with the skull). But perhaps my approach will give you ideas for the witch of your dreams--or nightmares!

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