Faux Fur and Fake Stars

Last night I finished the bits of violet on the Snowman's clothes and the packages on the ground, then decided to tackle the two remaining areas--the fur trim on his stocking cap and the stars in the sky.

Above you see my materials--Rainbow Gallery's Faux Fur and some metal bits I got at the bead store.  I think the decorative metal bits are prefect for a little boy's stocking.  If this stocking had been intended for a girl, I probably would have used tiny glass pearls or perhaps blue crystals, but this stocking is for a rowdy boy.  Metal studs seemed to be something he'd like better.  They make good snowflakes or stars, whichever you think the white dots on the blue sky are.

I attached them with the same Burmilana I used for the background of diagonal mosaic stitches, coming up in the center and going back down around the outside edge.  Hopefully the edges don't abrade the thread and they all fall off before the kid graduates from high school!

If you want to look for similar metal bits online, I believe these are bead caps, intended to be used as the top/bottom of a large bead in jewelry.  They may be spacers instead, which are metal bits that go between beads in jewelry.  They were fifteen cents each, not too bad for bead stuff.

The Faux Fur is from my stash.  It is 85% acrylic and 15% wool.  It's a rather thick thread compared to many of the fake fur ones available.  I'd say it is around the diameter of #8 perle or perhaps as fat as a full strand of DMC cotton floss.  I used it to fill the center of the stocking cap brim with French knots, then along the edge where the original design had tendrils of white sticking up, I came up close to a French knot, rotated the thread and needle until I had a tightly twisted thread that started to double on itself, then went down at the tip of a tendril.  This gives a twisted single stitch that looks similar to the French knots but is not round.  In the photo above you can see the finished brim and how I started the furry ball at the top of the stocking cap with French knots clustered in the middle. I'll probably do more twisted tendrils around the edge of the ball than I did on the brim.  But I am not sure about that yet.

Once the ball is done, I think this piece is finished. I'll need to carefully check it for missed stitches, then pull out my stocking finishing instructions and see if I can make this up into a real Christmas stocking.

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

A Nose and A Name

I've been busy working on the reds on this design, which got me started on the red top of the stocking.  I decided to put the recipient's name there using red holographic Kreinik and stitch the background around the name with my bright red Trio.  In this case I want the name to be rather subtle, not stand out.  Since Christmas items often are seen in artificial light, I think the shine of the holographic Kreinik will show the name off in the small stocking's natural setting, which is on a Christmas tree among many other ornaments and lights.

The first thing I need is an alphabet, so I started browsing Carrie Pieniozek's site where she has many free charted alphabets.
http://www.freepatternsonline.com/xscharts/alphabets.htm

The red top is 5 threads high, so I need a small alphabet.  I can add to the top of the stocking but since I don't want to make the name a focus of the stocking so I don't want to add much height.  That means I'm looking for letters that are 5-7 stitches tall.  After a little browsing, I settled on alphabet #33.
http://www.freepatternsonline.com/xscharts/page/abc33.htm

That's it stitched in the photo at the top of this article. You'll notice that it is up over the red area quite a bit.  That's my test stitching.  I count things out carefully to place the letters but I've discovered that letters often don't look exactly right even if they are, because the letters give the illusion of space around them.    The E and the N are the same width but the E looks wider because of its horizontal orientation and the fact that the base is longer than the top.  You have to adjust for those things and eventually I did.  By the way, it is in two shades of red as I was using up leftover plies of Trio and since this is a test, it doesn't matter what colors I use.

As I transferred each letter to the red band at the stocking's top, I made the A one stitch longer on the left side to make everything look right.  Alphabet #33 is 6 stitches high, so I increased the height of the red area from five threads to eight so there is a red row above and below the six rows of lettering.  As I work the real letters, I pull the letters above that are my pattern out to make room.

As you can see, I've also stitched in the snowman's carrot nose.  It is simply orange Medici wool.  I stitched two horizontal long stitches down the length of the nose, then did a row of straight vertical stitches across the orange area.  Then I did a slightly slanted vertical row.  Finally I ended this with another row of straight vertical stitches.  I could have done a fancier nose but I think this looks exactly the way I want it to.

Here's a photo of my progress to date.  I have to finish stitching the name and the violet areas, put brown stems on the apples, then tackle the stars in the sky and the fur trim on the stocking cap to finish.  Since I'm so close to getting this done, I need to rummage in the stash to see if I have red velvet for finishing.

Jane, sighing at the thought of finishing, then waving to KM as I exit

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

Landscapes

Right now the landscape in Chilly Hollow is lush and green after a record-breaking year of rain- and snowfall.  If you are tempted to stitch something like the above (which is the edge of the my woods with wild raspberries and self-seeded foxgloves), you need to visit the Julie Mar trunk show at Nimble Needle.  Julie works in Asheville, NC which is at the other end of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Chilly Hollow.  Many of her landscapes are of similar scenes.  Of course she does beaches, too!
http://thenimbleneedle.blogspot.com/

Julie's website is at this second link, just in case you can't get enough of her signature Appalachian mountain landscapes (although she does terrific small florals and great little bracelet cuffs).
http://www.juliemardesigns.com/

By the way, the same shop blog is showcasing a great many wooden boxes with needlework inserts.  It's a good place to view the large variety of sizes, woods, and prices for such items.

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

Bell, Bird and Fringe

So far I've stitched the bell, the toy bird and the fringe and buttons along the edge of Santa's jacket and scarf.  I've also done two of the three greens on the leaves and jacket and scarf.  It seems to make sense to pick groups of colors (I'll do the yellows next) and finish all the bits of that color in each stitching session.

Because I'm varying the thread texture, not the stitches, I'm trying to draw attention to certain areas by the threads used there.  For instance, the bell is stitched with Silk Lame Braid, which is a twisted silk that has a thread of metallic mixed in.
http://www.rainbowgallery.com/detail.cfm?ID=1225

I used bright yellow for the bell, then used orange and lime for the bell decoration across the middle.   The lime doesn't scream LIME on the design because it is similar in intensity to the yellow.  Both are medium shades, which means they are difficult for the eye to pick out and separate.  The dark orange stands out nicely against the other two colors, however.  The same orange Silk Lame Braid is used on the two packages at the snowman's feet on the left.  But the yellow is different.  I used a wool-silk blend there (I think it is Felicity's Garden but there is no label so I can't be sure).  This means the packages aren't as shiny as the bell since only one thread there has metallic in it.

For the bird, the buttons along the edge of the jacket, and the long fringe at the bottom of the scarf, I switched to Kreinik's new holographic threads.  These threads scream Look At Me! so they are perfect for areas I want to draw the eye to, like the toy bird and the long fringe and the buttons.  Actually, I planned where I wanted to use this thread carefully, distributing areas of holographic metallic around the canvas.  The largest concentration is at the bird, but I also plan to stitch the red bow on the package the snowman carries in this thread.  My only problem is that Kreinik holographic only comes in one shade of red (And there is no holographic pink--What were you guys thinking?!!?) so I'll have to do the dark red in another red metallic or use the purple holographic thread.  If you look at the buttons along the hem of the jacket, a few are purple, not red.  This is how the canvas is painted and I do like the effect.  I just have to decide whether this looks like a shadow or whether I have to use dark red instead.  Decisions, decisions!
http://www.needleworkdiscount.com/kreinikholographic

The greens in the leaves are all J. L. Walsh's silk/wool blend.  This is a luxurious thread that divides into five plies.  It is no longer being made, sadly, but it is gorgeous.  Some of my skeins are solid colors, some are subtle overdyes.  I used three shades of green for the leaves.  The dark green blocks of color on the jacket and scarf are all JL Walsh, too.  But the lime green is Impressions. I happened to have the perfect shades of lime in that thread.  Impressions is also half silk and half wool but it is a bit thicker in dimension than one ply of the JL Walsh silk/wool.  I love Impressions and use it often.  The thread looks more like wool than silk but a wool that has the sheen of silk. I plan to do as much of the snowman's jacket and scarf as I can in Impressions with some help from JL Walsh's silk/wool blend to fill in with colors.  I may use some Felicity's Garden also.
http://www.caron-net.com/threads.html

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

Juell's Needlepoint Dolls

Nimble Needle's blog mentioned the Juell needlepoint dolls this week, so I just had to share them with you along with some additional resources.  Here's what the shop said, with photos of the finished Japanese doll.  Isn't she beautiful?
http://thenimbleneedle.blogspot.com/2010/05/miyoshi-dolls.html

Juell canvases are distributed by Red Thread Designs.  They have all the doll canvases on their website.  Click Next to see them all page by page.  You'll see that the Japanese geisha doll is the most elaborate.  The cat Lionel, for example, is just two pieces. while the mermaids have two shells each and a tail.
http://www.redthreaddesigns.com/Pages/BigPages/BigDolls/ScarletBig.html

Needle Nook of La Jolla also has the canvases on their site, along with photos of another two finished.
http://www.needlenookoflajolla.com/canvas/women/dolls.html

DMC's new memory thread would be perfect for these!  Toss in some beads, charms and feathers and you will have quite a show-stopper.

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