The Gingerbread House Series

Squiggee has just posted photos of all her gingerbread houses on her blog. I had no idea there were so many! I have always loved the blue and white Snow & Ice House, but you might prefer the log cabin, the castle, the pepermint stick house, the barn, one of the two Halloween houses, or maybe the thatched cottage or one of the fairy houses. Or one of the others....
http://squiggeedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/03/gingerbread-houses.html

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

Finally There Are Flowers

I've been dropping very large hints that Holi would have flowers somewhere on her person and last night I finally arrived at a point where I could start adding them. When I first saw the set of six pet guardian angels, I thought they should hold something in their paws. I didn't have a clue what until Holi started to evolve in my mind. The colors she wears were originally sparked by a photo of crepe paper flowers, after all. Since Holi celebrates those flowers and the Indian Festival of Holi (color), it seemed appropriate to add folk art style flowers on her halo and in one paw. She holds my interpretation of the hibiscus that has a third bud opening here in CH this morning. The center of the flower is 4-5 pink French knots in my pink Trebizond, surrounded by petals in the orange Panache and red Patina and a touch of the same red medium silk perle by Gloriana that makes up the braid on her sleeve in a French knot next to the pink ones. Folk art flowers are shaded with bright colors, after all. I used these two sources which both have images of Mexican floral embroidery for inspiration.

http://alliesinstitches.blogspot.com/2009/01/oaxacan-embroidery.html

http://worldembroideries.blogspot.com/2009/01/huipul-from-central-america.html

Holi's halo has one lazy daizy flower so far, done in a bit of the red Patina which I unraveled (Patina is a rayon perle thread) from the strand and then made petals from. The red center is a fake bullion in the red Gloriana perle. To make fake bullions, tie a knot in your perle thread (it doesn't work for any other type of thread than perle), come up, pull on one part of the perle and slide the other bits down to the canvas, thread up the ends of the unraveling perle again and tie off on the back. Easy!

The fake bullion technique is adapted from something the thread magician David McCaskill taught us on the ANG email list. Thanks, David!

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

News, Good and Bad

If you have been following Plimoth Plantation's stitching of their reproduction 17th Century jacket, you will have been a bit shocked to find the museum is laying off staff and isn't going to display it as planned. But they are scrambling to get the jacket finished, are going to have it displayed at two unnamed museums, have transferred the blog describing the action to another owner, and are generally busy as little stitching bees regardless. This thing is going to happen, economy or no.
http://www.plimoth.org/embroidery-blog/2009/03/16/project-changes/

In happier news, Sue reports on the NAN exhibit in Kansas City. She also shares her own entry (second link).

http://sudukc.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/wonderful-world-of-needleart/

http://sudukc.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/my-nan-entry/


The latest award winners aren't up on the NAN website yet but if you aren't familiar with their work, please take a tour. This is a fabulous resource for free patterns and for wonderful pieces of stitching art to explore.
http://www.needleart.org/

If you are feeling a little down with all the things going on in the world today and with the long winter not really over yet, how about we do something totally different and visit with a seamstress in Kyoto? This week she reports on the doll festival that celebrates girl children. It's wonderful, as always, and a good antidote to the blues. The photo above is a Hani Matsuri doll, by the way.
http://www.wabei-mono.com/blog/2009/03/20/and-a-happy-belated-girls-day/

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

New Skirt, No Flowers

My Tudor Dog Holi has the outer skirt almost finished now. This is a four step stitch. First you stitch the framework of steps that makes up the box frames. I did this in an overdyed green medium perle from Gloriana that was an experiment, not an item you can buy. (It was a gift from a dear friend who sweet-talked it out of Gloriana's owner.) Then I filled the perimeter of each box with tent stitches done in Kreinik's 5982, which is a deep green and gold (I used #16 medium braid). The third step was to fill the empty middle of the box with overdyed Kreinik in ThreadworX's yellow and orange #71072. You use a modified cashmere stitch for this.

I've not done the fourth step yet. You are supposed to add a long stitch that reaches most of the way across the box (but not all the way) in a long slanting stitch / in the same thread as the tent stitches that go around the edge. The slant echoes the \ diagonal of the underskirt and makes the patterns flow together visually.

I like how this looks so far and will decide whether to do the last step, and if so, in what thread, later.

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

Head of the Dog, Swedish Ornaments and More

Holi has a halo now, as well as ear, nose and eye touches. The black eye and nose are a few plies of Splendor in straight stitches while the pink inner ear is a few straight stitches in dark pink Designer's Dream. Note how much darker the pink is than the white fur of the ear. I had pale pink Designer's Dream but it didn't show up against the white. I had to remove those stitches and use a much darker pink before the inner ear section showed up. Remember, two light shades often are not distinct enough for the eye to separate them. Ditto two dark and two medium shades. Usually you need to mix light with medium or dark with light, etc.

The #16 braid of gold 002 Kreinik is also a long stitch that was couched down with a little gold Accentuate metallic to make it bend like a halo. I have started the background around Holi's head also. I have continued to add diagonal rows of hearts on the inner skirt. Today I'll start work on the outer skirt.

In other news, I discovered photos of two of Leigh's Swedish Dynasty ornaments which are not on her website. These are the newest ornaments in the Dynasty series, which take motifs from various cultures and use them as ornaments. Here are the official Swedish Dynasty ornaments.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp826x.html

At the January trade show Leigh also offered shops two limited edition Swedish ornaments. I saw them both at Waste Knot when I visited after the Woodlawn show. I love the painted roses pattern, but I know fans of Dalish animals will love the chicken. They both are pictured in the second row of designs here. The deal was shops could buy these at the show but when Leigh ran out, they were gone. I think a shop that got the limited edition ornaments can re-order but you can't get them any other place. So if you are a fan of these, order from Playful Needle where they apparently have both or call Waste Knot which had them both last week. I know, I drooled over the painted roses!
http://www.the-playful-needle.com/Index_new.html

http://wasteknotblog.com/index.php?option=com_dfcontact&Itemid=82

You can see the other Dynasty ornament sets here.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/ImgIdx2f.html

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