Beatrice, The Renaissance Rat Pet Guardian Angel

The beauty above is Beatrice, Joanne's household pet guardian angel. She's a rat from the Renaissance, and one of the eleven household pet guardian angels destined for the ANG Auction which I'm not stitching.

Here's Joanne to tell you in her own words how Beatrice came to be stitched.

"When Jane asked me what ornament I wanted to stitch after I volunteered, I said, I don't care, you choose. Then I saw the pictures she sent me and I said, definitely the RAT, I love the rat! I loved her florentine dress, both the colors and the stitch, and since I was in Florence last year, I felt she was calling to me. I named her Beatrice in honor of Dante's Beatrice and in memory of my trip.

I didn't change much, if anything, of the original instructions except changing the cotton threads for silk. Since I liked the colors, I pulled the DMC colors and matched them in a combination of Needlepoint Inc and Splendor. The only thing I'm sorry about is that the beautiful Gloriana perle I chose didn't cover the canvas well, so I stuck with floss. Her wings are floche with a little bit of blending filament, her face is Burmilana, and her halo is pearl purl with some tambour thread accents. Since Jane had asked for a DMC ecru background to match the other angels, that's what I used.

And now we wait for the finishing instructions - Jane swears I can do it!"

Of course you can, Joanne. Once I finish my parakeet, Pat finishes her rabbit and Margaret finishes her dog, we'll start finishing. I'm going to rough out instructions, Pat (who is a marvelous finisher) will look over them, then we'll all jump in and finish our angels. I'll post the instructions we used here and the other stitchers will finish their angels so that we have a similar-looking set to auction off to one lucky bidder at the ANG Auction during the Milwaukee Seminar this fall.



Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Elizabethean Embroidery in All Its Glory

The painting on the left is Mary, Queen of Scots, the spiritual ancestor of needlepointers today. She's five years old in the portrait, which comes from the Mary, Queen of Scots website.
http://www.maryqueenofscotland.co.uk/

I've been following with great interest the development of Elmsley Rose's blog. ER is stitching a sampler of Elizabethean stitches and gives source material and nice photos of her sampler as it develops. I am no historical reproduction stitcher, but I can certainly admire what she is doing. It's fascinating to watch, especially since if Queen Mary herself showed up to read ER's blog, she'd recognize the stitching and feel right at home.
http://elmsleyrose.blogspot.com/

If you get addicted to period stitching, you'll want to follow Plimoth Plantation's stitching of an Elizabethean jacket. These are the folks who commissioned the new Gilt Sylke Twist thread which is now available for those special touches on your needlework.
http://www.plimoth.org/embroidery-blog/

Jane Zimmerman's new website has been fun to watch also. She doesn't just do geometric samplers in needlepoint, she has written a great many articles on stitching throughout history and a lot of them are appearing on her website.
http://www.janezimmerman.com/

If you want to take a fascinating class on Elizabethean stitching, you can't go wrong by having Carole Lake visit your guild. Check these out. The first link is a one-day class, the second four full days of fun and history.
http://www.carolelake.com/TeachingPieces/Thistle.htm
http://www.carolelake.com/TeachingPieces/MaryQueen.htm

Those who don't know their own history are doomed to miss out on a lot!

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Finished Play Pretties to Admire UPDATED

Last night saw a rather tired Jane basketweaving a little bit. My progress isn't worth showing so how about I distract you with some fabulous finished pieces from other places? After all, if you don't like animals or Asian-themed pieces, you have been a bit disappointed here lately!

First, let's head to Michele Herron's blog to see her last four pieces, all shoe shaped! Two are Western boot canvases and two are Christmas stockings. All four are wonderful to see. Michele owns The Bristly Thistle in Michigan. You probably remember her Halloween canvas with the little kids marching in a row on their way to trick or treat. She calls her blog Neeldepoint Tips and Tricks and tells you what threads and stitches she chose for these designs plus she has a nice little blog entry about how to chart names for stocking tops. I love her blog!

http://bristlythistle.blogspot.com/

Next, how about we go see Ruth Schmuff? Ruth also owns a shop right outside of Baltimore called Bedecked and Beadazzled and is a NP designer, too. Her blog is full of pieces she's stitched for the shop or for classes. You may remember the pastel pink Melissa Shirley Santa she was stitching. It is covered in crystals, fur and fancy stitches. My kind of Santa! It is back from the finisher's and it is lovely.

http://www.tistheseason.org/blog/ruthsBlog.html

You should browse a bit. Ruth has photos of the many ways to finish the shop's new snowman club designs (that helped me decide to put my Squiggee canvas on a photo album cover) and shows off a gorgeous pillow as an example of how finishing really "makes" a stitched piece. Do not forget to go to the second page to see her cat portrait, complete with whiskers! To navigate her blog, click on the links under Recently on the right side of the page or open a month in the Archives and start reading there. Ruth loves finishing and embellishing painted canvases and posts great photos of her work to inspire us.

Finally, for something completely different, let's head to Edy's blog. Edy is sampler-mad! She has two blogs, a personal one, and a blog that collects photos of finished cross stitch samplers with detail like the designer name, the fabric count of the ground fabric, etc. If you enjoy samplers, you will want to bookmark and visit Edy's collection and perhaps contribute photos of your own work there.

http://galleryofsamplers.blogspot.com/

Edy's sampler blog is a great place to get framing ideas, find a designer whose style you like, or just get ideas for the next chart to add to your collection. Great idea, Edy!

UPDATE: Edy tells me the sampler collection blog isn't hers (although she's contributed to it), just her personal website that talks about her samplers and of course her ten darling grandkids under the age of eleven. Way to go, Edy! What fun! Here is Edy's personal blog.
http://grandmaelf.blogspot.com/

Now let's return to our regularly scheduled programming--I basketweave while we all complain about the winter weather!

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

More Pet Guardian Angels

There are a bunch of folks (I count eleven other angels underway plus my six) stitching Kandace Merric's household pet guardian angel series. The set will be auctioned off by ANG at the Milwaukee Seminar next fall. I know not everyone will get to ANG's Seminar but you can see some of the other angels underway on various blogs.

Margaret is stitching the Tudor Dog and it is lovely! That's it in the picture above. Head to her blog and go back a page to see the beginning of her dog, then read forwards to watch it appear like magic.
http://cranecottage.com/stitchingblog/

Pat is stitching the Georgian Rabbit and it is just as lovely! She isn't as far along as Margaret is, and I can't wait to see more of the rabbit's chic robes.
http://needleartnut.blogspot.com/

Once Margaret and Pat and I all have finished angels, we are going to make them up as ornaments ourselves. Stay tuned for that once I finish my Victorian Parakeet and have the finishing done on the Squiggee Three Women and a Peach piece.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Buttons and Necklace But No Halo

The Victorian parakeet got more basketweave background last night, plus beads for buttons on her jacket front and a bead necklace. The necklace chain is the Kreinik metallic that inspired the colors of her clothing. In the original Kandace Merric chose colors typical of the Victorian period. The original parakeet wore a pink gown with pink and green braided trim.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow