Next, Add Tree

Once the sky stitch was the proper size to look good with the rest of my South Seas Fiji design, the only things left were the tree and the metallic hanger at the top of the ornament.  I've decided that I want to frame this piece with a mat cut out in a circle so that looking at South Seas Fiji is like looking through a peephole.  It should be a glimpse at Paradise in my mind.  So I won't be stitching the top of the ornament.  I'll probably just put a row of tent stitches all around the perimeter.

That leaves the palm tree fronds unstitched.  I started them yesterday but didn't talk about them.  Donna, that's why the top of the tree looked so faint yesterday.  I had just started the stitching and didn't make that clear in what I wrote.  If you look at yesterday's photo, you can see the darker fronds stitched with a ply of the same dark forest green Splendor (#S907) I used for the tree line in the background.  I am doing stem stitch for the fronds.  It gives me a thin line since I am just using one ply of silk.  I topped the line and filled it out with a strand of dark green Petite Treasure Braid #P853.  This adds sparkle to the tree while the dark silk underneath gives a shadow.  It takes a long time to stem stitch the fronds with such a thin thread but I think building up the fronds slowly works best.

In the photo above you can see that I've started working on the lighter colored fronds using a medium green Splendor in color S906.  Once I finish all the fronds (using the color copy of the plain unstitched canvas as my guide) I will go back and add a ply of Sparkle Braid (a thin metallic strand similar in size to my Petite Treasure Braid) in color SK08 on top.  Then I will have to decide whether to use an even lighter color of Splendor to add more highlights and shadows.  I'm playing with color and texture here, trying to make the palm tree memorable and realistic, too.

Wish me luck!  I'm going to add three more threads to my thread stash count....

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Big Versus Little Sky Stitches

The photo above shows the old large Ming Variation stitch in the right hand side of the sky and the left side shows the smaller balloon stitch I found which is a smaller scale, less oval version of the stitch that some of us think is too large.  It was easy to pull out the left half of the sky as this is a light coverage stitch with only one ply of silk.

Here's a tip about ripping out--use the eye end of the needle to gently pull up a stitch.  If I use the business end, the sharp tip catches the silk the wrong way and I end up pulling half the ply out, not the whole thing.

Comparing the two sky stitches, I like the Ming Variation better but it isn't right for this canvas. It is too large.  So I ripped it all out and continued filling the sky with balloon stitch.

This photo shows an all balloon stitch sky with some of the palm fronds stitched in.  I'm using stem stitch and a variety of threads, but more about that later when I have more palm fronds stitched.

Thanks for your input, everyone!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Brenda Hart is Queen of the Universe Today

Remember this list of winners from the 2009 ANG Seminar exhibit in Milwaukee?


Category 5 Painted Design with stitch guide
(Non professional)
1 Vicky Lamers Fiona's Carnevale Mask
2 Evelyn Cavis Sweet Dreams
3 Shereen Ikeda Japanese Crane Scroll

HM Evelyn Cavins Dirty Boots
HM Susan Swan Anemones


I got a note from Brenda Hart this morning that said this,
"Jane, I thought I'd mention that Vicki Lamers, Evelyn Cavins, and Sue Swan all did their pieces in my class.  Vicki is from Tucson, Evelyn is from Santa Barbara, and Sue Swan is from Tucson.  Sue's piece is by Diane O'Leary, Evelyn's Sweet Dreams is by Sandra Gilmore, her Trail Boots (actual name) is by Boots Bailey, and as you know Fiona is by Leigh Designs.  I know I shouldn't be bragging, but I can't help myself."


Brenda, if my students had taken three of the five ribbons in a category at the ANG Seminar exhibit, I'd take out an ad on the front page of the New York Times!  Many congratulations to Brenda Hart and her students.  This is a job well done!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Is My Sky Too Big?

Last night I completed the sky in a variation of Ming stitch (Page 91 of Brenda Hart's Stitches for the Millennium) using one ply of my Thread Gatherer's overdyed silk (color Seafoam Green).  As you can see, I stitched right over the palm tree fronds.  If I'm careful and use a sharp needle, the fronds can be stitched on top of the background stitches without disturbing them.

However, Liz thinks that perhaps the Ming Variation #3 stitch is too large in scale.  I will think about this today and just work on Glittering Kimono couching of my H-Q rows. I don't know if Liz is right or not but if I decide she is, this is the time to rip out.  I don't want to do palm fronds until I am sure about the stitch they go on top of.  As usual when I am thinking about a stitch, I will work on another item and put this one up where I can see it as I walk around the house.  Eventually I will decide whether Liz is right.  Scale is very important in needlework. If the background stitch is too large, the piece will be an irritant.  So I'll take time to think this over.  Thanks for the critique, Liz!  We can get too close to our stitching and not see how good/bad it is!  I love getting comments from Blog readers as otherwise I have no input on my stitching at all.  There are no other needlepointers near me in Chilly Hollow.

Anyone else have thoughts about the sky background stitch?

The other thing I worked on last night is the white foam on the edges of the waves rolling into the beach.  My canvas came with a two page stitch guide.  I used the threads list to guide me in choosing threads (but I didn't follow it completely). I have not used any of the stitch suggestions until now.  The guide suggests using detached buttonhole for the white foam.  I deviated from that slightly in that I used regular buttonhole (one ply of my white Splendor silk used for the sandy beach in the background mixed with one strand of white Accentuate #311) to stitch the foam lines from left to right.  In certain areas I added a tiny French knot where the foam needed to be thicker as it spilled over the top of an incoming wave.

I have to admit it was hard to keep the silk and Accentuate strands even in the needle.  This was slow going but I like the end result. It doesn't overwhelm the water and looks real to me.

The white Accentuate was a new thread so I added one more stash credit point to my tally which stands at 25 now.  It amazes me how many threads I use on a piece and how I rarely use up a thread from my stash.  I must mix a lot of small sections of each thread.  But as I am a threadaholic, I would expect no less.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

For Margaret

I've been pestering all the Margarets who normally post comments here, trying to find the Margaret who asked about the tulips pillow on display next to the pet guardian angels at the ANG Auction.

I can't find the right Margaret!  So, Margaret, wherever you are, here is the best photo from the ANG Auction display of the tulip pillow next to the pet guardian angels.

Email me at chilly hollowat hot maildotcom and I'll send you the Auction chairman's email address to find out more if you need to.

And for the other Margarets (you know who you are) sorry to have bothered you!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow