The Gold Fish and More

Mary Lake Thompson's Gold Fish

In non-Luna stitching news, Carol writes she's found four more skeins of the dark teal Empress Silk at Edwardian Needle.  She is still a little worried she won't have enough silk for the background, but the folks at Edwardian Needle suggested that she alternate her Swirl stitch row done in Empress Silk with two rows of tent stitch in her Cire nylon floss instead of one row. Clever idea, don't you think?  Personally I think she'll have enough thread but then I probably would only use four plies to cover the background.

Carol has decided she'd like to use all Cire on her fish as the nylon threads look wet to her.  She's pulled some colors to choose from (above).  She has also found two sizes of topaz colored crystal sequins to use for the dots on the fish fins.  So things are moving right along.  I need to get busy and turn up some stitches for Carol to use on her fish to help her choose colors.  A thread may look totally different when stitched than it does in the skein.  Hopefully I can get to that this weekend.

While we all weren't looking, Joey had a birthday.  Wait'll see what she did to celebrate!  Next time, invite us too, ok?
http://theneedleworks.typepad.com/the_needle_works/2011/02/joeys-60th.html

Speaking of Texas, fans of monthly clubs will enjoy a peek at some of the clubs and a canvas with threads and stitch guide that Needle Works in Austin is stitching.
http://theneedleworks.typepad.com/the_needle_works/2011/02/what-have-we-been-up-to.html

After the 2001 ANG Seminar, a lot of people were interested in finding this Clarice painted canvas which was exhibited there.
http://www.needlepoint.org/WhatIs/2001/the_bird_lady.php

Nimble Needle has it!
http://thenimbleneedle.blogspot.com/2011/02/bird-lady-by-clarice.html

The Nashville trade show over the weekend is one of the big cross stitch venues for shops to pick up goodies.  Want to see what Sara Leigh bought for us?  Scarlet Thread specializes in kitting up counted canvaswork projects so you can see both the chart cover and the colors used to stitch the model.  (Hint: if you liked Needle Delight's Rainforest Crunch, you'll want to click on this link.)
http://stitchything.blogspot.com/2011/02/fresh-from-nashville.html

New books are starting to show up in the shops (I have friends who just got their copies of SharonG's Simply Essential Needlepoint Stitch Explanations.  I hate them.)  Here's another review of June McKnight's Spooky Stitches.  By the way, SharonG is saying her second book will be about landscape stitches.
http://www.nuts-about-needlepoint.com/spooky-stitches-book-review

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com

Odds and Ends and Bangs

Last night I worked on Luna's hair and started the cloak trim. Although the purple Empress wool from Pure Palette I have is too heavy for the cloak lining, it makes beautiful tiny French knots as you see in the photos.

You probably won't see Luna again until I finish the cloak trim, lining and her hair.  I need to cut down on the number of redundant photos I post here, so we'll talk about other things until I am able to show you these items finished.  

Speaking of other things, Judy Harper continues very ill.  Apparently her family has turned off any eBook purchases on her Elegant Whimsies website but the website and her two blogs are still there for now.  It distresses me to know Judy is seriously ill since we carried on a lively correspondence and a running debate over just how much embellishment is too much on a canvas.  Judy always argued for restraint although she was a big believer in beading a canvas using the "use skip tent stitch then fill in the empty holes with beads" approach.  Here's Judy's Blogger profile which says what Judy is in just two sentences.  Keep those good wishes coming!

http://www.blogger.com/profile/00301188397987608400

If you are curious about the tiny colored sequins that Needlepoint Tool Time has in stock, Tisha has posted a bit more information about them as well as listing shops that stock them.

http://stitchplaywithneedlepointtooltime.blogspot.com/2011/02/details-about-micro-sequins.html

ABS Designs has posted all of the Nutcracker Ballet ornament series that Anne blog stitched here so we can see the set together.

http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2011/02/nutcracker-series-reprise.html

http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2011/02/nutcracker-series-part-two.html

Rittenhouse has posted an interesting article about NP portraits on their website.  It's a good read with plenty of eye candy illustrations.

http://rittenhouseneedlepoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/portraits-in-needlepoint.html

If animal portraits are more your style, check out the dog and wolf examples from Barbara Russell at Nimble Needle's blog. (Feb. 22 and 23, 2011 if you are late to the party.)

http://thenimbleneedle.blogspot.com/

Are you a NP book collector?  If so, you'll want to take a peek at the books PFOS profiles on their blog.  Many are Julia Snyder's but not all.

http://pocketfullofstitches.blogspot.com/2011/02/interesting-books.html

Finally, these are for bargain hunters.  Ruth Schmuff has a Groupon (Groupon is a group coupon) deal going. 

http://www.notyourgrandmothersneedlepoint.com/2011/02/groupon-coupon-for-bedecked-and.html

Amy Bunger is doing a sale of the week for each Friday-Sunday.  Keep an eye out tomorrow to see the limited sale items for this weekend.

http://www.amybunger.com/online_3day_special.html

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com

Housekeeping

Over the weekend I went through my Blog photo albums and deleted a bunch of photos.  Blog has a limit of how many photos I can upload and I am at 52% right now.  I took down all the Canvas of the Day photos I could find, plus I removed photos from articles that I thought I could do without.  If you are reading old Blog articles and find a photo missing, that's why.  I just can't keep everything.

If you blog using Blogger, you may want to log into your Picasa web albums also and see if you need to delete photos.  I've found that partial uploads and duplicate photos are common and these stay in your photo album until you manually delete them one by one.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com

Fixing Luna's Hair

Luna Unstitched

Today's Blog posting starts off with a photograph of my Ladies of the Night canvas untouched because I want you to see how her hair was painted before you see how I stitched it.

I'd planned to stitch her cloak lining next but realized I had better figure out if the lining stitch played nice with her hair and I got carried away last night.    This is her head.  I'm not finished yet but I needed to get both sides of her hair stitched before I did the bangs.  Look at the unstitched gray area in this photo and then at the full photo at the top of this article.  I've skipped the gray shading in this close up head shot.

Here you see black and gray areas stitched except for that gray spot at her neck.  I'm using two threads--a black silk/wool blend and a silk/metallic blend.  The color is way off on this photograph so you can see as much of the texture change in her hair as possible.  In person it is quite visible, even under night lights, but the camera doesn't pick up the sheen of silk or the sparkle of metallics well.

I don't always necessarily follow the painted areas when I stitch a painted canvas.  I wanted to use a stitch that didn't follow the gentle curves of the gray waves so I had to adjust where the highlighted areas (i.e., the gray) fell so my stitches would fit.

Here is the bottom of the canvas showing how the hair and the cloak lining stitches work together.  Another unstitched gray area is at the top of this photo just under her hand.

I'll finish the hair tonight before I work further on the cloak lining stitches.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com

Upside Down or Right Side Up?

Lillian Chermor Gold Fish with Seaweed

I've just gotten a second comment about Carol's Gold Fish canvas being photographed upside down.  And it finally clicked!  (Ok, I am somewhat slow.  I admit that.)  Some folks like the fish turned so that the dangling seaweed (above) becomes weeds growing from the sandy bottom (below).

Lillian Chermor Gold Fish with Water Plants

What do you think?  Should Carol frame this so that she can hang the canvas either way?  How would you display it?

You can see the design on the Needlepoint Originals by Lillian Chermor website by clicking on Collections (left side) and then choosing "Flora and Fauna and Friends."
http://needlepointbylilliandesign.com/

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com