Blog is Reborn

Regular readers of Blog will remember I asked back in October what folks like to read here. I'm making an attempt to cut down on the various chores I do each day so that I'll have more stitching time.  I asked for input and an amazing number of you revealed how you use Blog and what you think is important for me to keep.  Thank you!

Blog itself breaks down into three areas:

Daily updates, which tend to be news from blogs, websites, and Facebook.  That's the bulk of Blog postings these days.  Folks suggested I cut back to 3 times a week instead of a daily posting.  I may do that as blog news continues to dry up elsewhere but it doesn't save me time to do so.  I still have to read all the postings and pick the ones that are worth repeating.  That is what takes the time, not my creating links and brief descriptions.  I am just going to try to be more discriminating.  More and more things are published on Facebook only, which bothers me since some folks don't like or use social media, but there's nothing I can do about it except hope you non-FB folk can see at least some of the links.

Informational tabs, which list things such as Monthly Clubs, Classes and Events, new items from the latest trade show, etc.  These are more reference material items.  I'm going to stop updating the listings of classes and events.  Although people use them, they are a lot of work to keep up to date.  I'll leave the list of counted thread designers, list of tutorials, etc. alone for now.  The bulk of the work is already done on these.  I have combined the list of shops that service non-U.S. customers with the list of favorite shops already and will stop updating the Tutorials and Tips tab as folks rarely use it.  I'll still keep a list of new items coming out as the shops who don't go to a trade show use these and regular stitchers also look at this a lot.  It's some work to do but that is more manageable than other areas.

Blog-stitching is the most popular thing I do.  Folks love watching me stitch things and listen to my explanations of what I've done and why.   That's the most popular part of Blog, actually. I hope to do more of this in 2016, since I've stopped doing models and writing custom stitch guides.  I simply don't have the time with Real Life chores and the grind of constant deadlines is getting to me.  I may do a model here and there, but I won't be stitching 4-6 a year any more.  I will still do guides, but for canvases that I own, love and want to stitch.  Many of those will be blog-stitched although folks who want all the information on how to reproduce what I did in one compact piece will be able to purchase a guide.

So, that's The Plan for 2016.  I hope it frees up more time in my busy day to stitch.  Happy New Year!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright October 26, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Can't Find That Perfect Color?

Lorraine at Colour Complements showed off two stocking cuffs stitched by a customer today.  (Click on the thumbnail photo, then click again on the new photo for a really good look at these cuties.)  They are darling, but the point I want to emphasize is that Lorraine custom-dyed a color to create the perfect background thread for the stitcher.
http://colourcomplements.com/2015/12/christmas-needlepoint.html

The next time you are going nuts trying to find a color to match your canvas, small businesses like Colour Complements might be able to create just the right color in the right thread for you.  Of course you can use a different color or pick a light coverage stitch in a medium shade of the background color to show off the color you can't match, but light coverage stitches don't work in every situation.

If you can loan out the canvases or find a DMC color match to the thread manufacturer, they might be able to reproduce just the right thing for you.  It doesn't hurt to ask!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright December 21, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Want to Learn Needle Painting? Deviating from The Plan Part Two

Yesterday we talked about padding parts of the Miami Gold Digger's dog, then stitching over those areas, finishing up with my struggles to make the dog's mouth look good.  The photo above is my original sketch showing the ways in which I thought my stem stitches should curve to mimic fur realistically.

And here is how the dog looks once I finished the eyes, nose and mouth.  Look carefully at the dog's ears and you will see there is a line of tent stitches on either side of the face and under the mouth to create a chin. I liked the chin but the tent stitches on the side of the face had to go.  With needle painting, mistakes are easy--you just cover them with more stitches!  So I added more stem stitches flowing from the head to the ear tips, covering the tent stitches I didn't want.  Here is what the dog face looked like after I finished.  

You can see how the ear tent stitches are covered.  No one knows they are there except you and me!  I have to admit I worked hard on the chest to get the slant of the stem stitches right.  That was the hardest part of the dog for me.  But I worked this a little at a time by taking my four plies of Silk/Cashmere and splitting them further into eight sections.  You have to be careful doing this as the thread will separate if you pull too hard--it's not really meant to be separated into 8 plies.  But doing so enabled me to cover just a little at a time as I tried to get the chest area right.  I could have also used one ply of silk floss as well if I wanted just a touch of coverage.  That also works without looking too different than the Silk/Cashmere used for the fur.

Finally I ended up with a dog that looks like this--I hope you like him and that my struggles and planning show you how to proceed with needle painting.  It just takes a little planning, some careful observation when things go wrong to figure out how to fix them, and then layers of new stitches on top to hide your mistakes.  In fact, it is really not that hard once you understand how it is done.

I hope you'll give needle painting a try.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright December 24, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Criss-Cross Snow

Just in time for winter, Needlepoint For Fun has a great snowy skies stitch. 
http://www.needlepoint-for-fun.com/needlepoint-criss-cross-hungarian-stitch.htm

If you aren't familiar with the stitch, Pat Timpanaro has done a lovely numbered diagram for the ANG website.
http://www.needlepoint.org/StitchOfTheMonth/2000/00-06.php

I am not certain what threads Needlepoint For Fun used but it looks like Caron's Snow to me.  I happen to love that thread!  Of course Silk Lame Braid, Kreinik metallics and a lot of other threads will also work. Raid your stash and see what you can find.
http://www.needleworkplus.com/Threads/Caron_Collection/Snow_/snow_.html

Here's to beautiful icy snowy skies this winter--but only on our stitching!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright December 13, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Want to Learn Needle Painting? Deviating from The Plan Part One

Black and White Sketch with Guide Lines

Once I had a sketch plan for how to stitch my little dog (above), it was time to do the stitching.  As a reminder, this is an 18 count canvas and I used white size 8 perle cotton and two colors of Gloriana's new Silk/Cashmere thread (using two plies of the four the thread automatically separates into) for the majority of the dog.

Padding Added

As you may remember from last week, I planned to pad the dog's ears, forehead and cheeks and perhaps the front legs.  Then I would use mostly stem stitches on top of the padded and non-padded areas.  So I started out by padding the dog's cheeks and forehead,  put a large X stitch over the area above the nose followed by a few horizontal stitches, then tent stitched its chest and front legs.  You can see all that above plus I outlined the dog's ears 2/3 of the way around with stem stitches.  All of this was done with white perle cotton except for the gray tent stitches which were done in gray perle cotton.

I started to feel uneasy about the tent stitched legs and chest (after all, it's going to be difficult to stitch through a layer of tent stitches), so I left that area alone and stitched horizontal stitches across the cheeks and vertical stitches across the forehead with my Silk/Cashmere.  Traditionally if you pad an area, the next layer is done perpendicular to the first, hence the orientation of my second layers.  I added more horizontal layers over the area just above the dog's little black nose, which isn't traditional, but that seemed to work well.

In the photo above you see all that finished, plus I've stem stitched the ears, working the stitches to match the direction of my black and white drawing but covering the stem stitched edge of the ears.  Those stem stitches lift the edges of the ears slightly.  Once I had all that done, it was time to stem stitch the front legs, then the dog's body and tail.  I switched to a crewel needle to do the legs as the sharp tip makes it easier to stitch through the underlying tent stitches.  I omitted the tent stitches from the stitch guide, by the way.  I can't see that adding or omitting them makes much difference, but sometimes you don't know this until you try it.

Next I added two black Swarovski bicone beads for the eyes and three little stitches in black Petite Very Velvet for the nose.  Those PVV stitches were a long horizontal stitch at the top of the nose with a shorter horizontal stitch under that, then a vertical very short stitch under the top two stitches, making a T shape.  With two plies of black Splendor silk floss, I stem stitched the mouth.








Take a good look at the mouth--doesn't it look grumpy?  So out it came but not before I took a good look at it.  I decided the problem was the mouth was too long on the right side and that two plies were too fat.  After I removed the black threads I switched to one ply of black silk and tried again.  This is what I came up with--

The mouth is better but it still seems to be pulled down on the right side. Checking the canvas under my magnifier, I discovered that this was actually a bit of the black painted mouth showing, so I covered it with a short horizontal white stitch topped with a white tent stitch.  When the black paint was hidden, this is the mouth I ended up with.

When it comes to the eyes, nose and mount on your canvas, it does take a bit of work to get the expression just right but all that effort is worth it.

Those of you with sharp eyes will have noticed that in the mouth photos I haven't stitched the dog's body but when you are trying to explain things, sometimes the photos are out of order.  Sorry!  The order in which one does things in a stitch guide are not always the order in which they are originally stitched.  Your stitch guide author tries to figure out the easiest way to do things, so sometimes the photos we take as we work on a model are a bit out of order.  But follow what the guide says and you will have the benefit of working the most efficient and easiest way instead of following what we did and discovering--just like the stitch guide writer did!--that it wasn't the best way of working.

This is getting a bit long so let's finish it up tomorrow, ok?

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright December 19, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.