The center brown leaf of the design is in this photo. It’s partially stitched to give you an idea of different approaches to tent stitching a design. The leaf is roughly in the center of the pattern. You’ll see two brown knots on top of the canvas to the right and left of the leaf. (More about those in a minute.) In this photo the brown outline of the leaf and several of the veins are partly stitched. First, I used half cross stitch for the brown outlines. I hope you can see in the left uppermost tip that the brown outline is not solid. I did not stitch a brown stitch at the point of that tip. Follow the tip down the right side of the point towards the leaf’s center and you will see a diagonal broken line of stitches. On a NP grid you can’t do a solid line when you are working on a Northwest to Southeast line in tent stitches. If you look at the other side of the leaf, you’ll see a Southwest to Northeast row of stitches that looks solid. The difference is the slant. While you have this piece in your hand stitching, the broken line is very obvious but if you put it down on a table and step away several feet, the broken line is hard to see. Our eyes compensate and see a line where there is none. So don’t let these slants bother you too much. (Unless of course you are stitching something that will be viewed from 6 inches or less all the time. Which is about as likely as my being elected Miss Universe tomorrow.)
Of course if we were stitching this in a multitude of stitches, I could do a row of backwards tent on top of the NW to SE line (reducing the plies of my Mandarin Floss from 5 to probably 3 so the “bump” of the top didn’t stick out too much) and the line would suddenly look much more solid.
The next logical step is fill the inside of the leaf with continental stitches. See the golden brown Mandarin Floss thread leading from the leaf center to the right side? That is where I stopped my continental stitch row. I came up in the “dirty” hole and then stopped and parked my needle on a pair of magnets above/below my canvas. This is how I cope with color changes. You’ll see more of this later, but basically if you stop half way through a tent stitch, you can pick up and finish that stitch later. Stay tuned on this one. Right now I just want you to know that’s how I stop using a thread. This was a really good place to show the technique even though I have several more rows of this color to do.
After doing the brown outline and veins in my brown thread in half cross stitches, I stitched continental stitches in the ivory (2 plies of Impressions) and golden tan (Mandarin Floss) I worked from top to bottom. In this picture I’m two-thirds done. I don’t really like using continental stitch here where all the threads I’m using are multiple plies (or a doubled strand in the case of the ivory Impressions). It is way too easy to disturb a stitch that was already finished when coming through a hole that already has a thread in it. But that’s how continental stitch is done. (Did you bookmark the places that show how half cross and continental are done? If not, go back a few blog entries to May 10 and refresh your memory.)
Note particularly the oval in dark brown at the upper left of the leaf. I worked my way around the outside of the leaf adding the outline but when I got here, I did not stop and fill in the center in my medium brown. I’ll do that later when I have that color out to do those areas. Please note that I have added another brown to my threads. I decided instead of stitching the outline of some of the dark red leaves in black as the canvas is painted, that I would add a very dark brown to the mix. I found Mandarin Floss M821 in my stash. It is a dark brown with grey undertones. It is now the thread that will outline and draw veins on this design. The medium brown now will be used in touches like the oval area here that needs a darker center than the ivory/golden tan majority of the leaf. Here are the threads, colors, and number of strands or plies used for the brown leaf.
5 plies in dark grey-brown (Mandarin Floss M821)
5 plies in medium dark brown - Mandarin Floss #M886 (Rainbow Gallery)
5 plies in golden brown - Mandarin Flos #M842 (Rainbow Gallery)
2 strands in ivory - Impressions #1146 (Caron)
Now to go back to the knots you see in the photo--there are three general ways to start threads on NP canvas. You can have knots on top of the canvas, knots on the back of the canvas, or use techniques that don’t involve knots at all. We’ll talk about this aspect of stitching another time.
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