Introducing Gay Ann Roger's Cameo Ornament

Although I mostly stitch painted canvases, I occasionally venture out into the world of Counted Thread, especially when there is a project I absolutely love that is charted.  On the right you see my next project, Gay Ann Roger's large cameo ornament.  She taught two versions of a cameo ornament at Callway.  I'm stitching the larger one which is seen on the right.  It is going to be my mother's Christmas present as she loves cameos. I know she will love this piece!  But I'm going to have to hurry as this needs to be finished and made up into an ornament by Thanksgiving.  By the way, the link below is to Gay Ann Roger's blog.  On it she posted photos of all the cameo designs she has taught.  Each year in October she has what she calls E-Week when she sells selected designs from her years of teaching.  I saw and purchased my cameo ornament instructions this year from her website (second link below).  Don't miss the techniques pages.  You can get great hints from The Queen of Bullions herself that will come in very handy whether you are a painted canvas person, an embroider, a counted thread lover, or just interested in hand work.
http://gayannrogers.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

http://www.gayannrogers.com/site_2/Home_Page.html

The instructions arrived promptly and I immediately sat down and read through them twice.  In my experience, reading the instructions several times before you start really helps, especially when you are working from class instructions that were meant to be worked with the teacher present.  There are always a few little questions which Gay Ann answered via email promptly.

By the way, I also ordered the cameo bead separately from the instructions from Mrs. Rogers.  It really finishes off this piece beautifully, especially since I know my mother doesn't have a pin she would want to put on the ornament.

For this piece you use #12 perle cotton, #8 Kreinik braid, #8 perle cotton and silk ribbon on congress cloth.  The ornament is made up of three parts:  the front, the back and a flap on the front to attach your cameo.  The instructions include finishing tips and how to make the double tassel that finished the piece.  I choose sage green congress cloth, ecru perle cotton and Kreinik silver braid #102.  I am undecided about the silk ribbon.  I have a lot of shades of pink for the silk ribbon roses but may borrow ecru silk ribbon from a fellow threadaholic to use instead.  I am a bit worried that ecru flowers won't set off the ecru cameo button properly.  We'll see.

As I have a tight deadline, once I finished the squiggles on the Rabbit Geisha, I started the front flap piece.  Here is my progress so far.

Next time I'll talk about the perle cotton I'm using for this piece.

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

Presenting Brenda Stofft's Rabbit Geisha

Yes, the Rabbit Geisha is done!  I finished couching the squiggles that decorate her over tunic last night.  They are some of the pretty navy Snow couched down with one ply of the navy Splendor silk I've been using on this project.

My scanner bed isn't large enough to take a good close up of everything at once.  Sorry.  If the sun comes out this week I'll take a photograph of the whole thing with my digital camera for you, but I thought close ups of half of the Rabbit Geisha were better than nothing.  So here are the two halves, with overlap but at least you can see how she turned out.

She will stay on her stretcher bars for 2-3 months as I need to wait until the finisher's Christmas rush is over before she travels to be made into a tote bag applique.  I hope to have something fabulous to show you in early 2010.

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

Next Steps

Sorry, I didn't get the squiggles couched last night.  Too busy with other things!  I did get the instructions for my next project, the Gay Ann Rogers Cameo Ornament, have read through them twice, made a list of what I don't have here, and have cut and put my congress cloth on stretcher bars.  Hopefully I can get to the next largest town to pick up the one thing I don't have--#12 cotton perle---shortly.

I will finish the Rabbit Geisha tonight!  (Famous last words.)  And for those who asked, she will be appliqued on the front of a tote bag sometime after Christmas as I didn't finish this piece in time to meet the finishing deadline.  No problem, as this is a present for me.

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

The Geisha's Tassels

Last night I finished the navy tassels. They are worked in a mix of gold 002 Kreinik (straight lines around the knots), Splendor navy #S872 and metallic navy Snow #17.  The long lengths are just straight or slanted stitches to fill the area and the tassels are stem stitch of both the Splendor silk and the Snow metallic.  You don't see the Snow well in the photo but in person it is a subtle and elegant touch.

The only thing I have to complete now are the squiggles on the trim of the tunic at the neckline under the shawl collar and at the hem.  Which is a good thing as the instructions for the cameo ornament I'm stitching for a Christmas present arrived yesterday.  I'll gather my stitching supplies for that tonight after I finish the Rabbit Geisha.  She will be put away for a while until after Christmas as my finisher is too busy to work on her right now.

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

The Geisha's Fan

I meant to leave the fan the Rabbit Geisha carries until very last but I just couldn't resist!

The photo to the left shows the first steps in stitching the fan.  The middle rib is stem stitch using a strand of Silk Lame Braid (color #SL60) which is a mix of ecru and gold.  The bottom of the handle is some of my Kreinik gold 002, size #16 ribbon, stitched in herringbone stitch to show off the ribbed pattern.  The couched ecru stitches are long lengths using Rainbow Gallery's Subtlety (color Y904) which is a silk perle in size 12.  This is the same thread I used on the kimono over tunic.  I laid my stitches in the ecru ditches and couched the stitches down with shorter stitches in the same thread.  It makes a pattern on the two halves of the fan that looks different due to the different orientation of the painted lines.  If you look carefully at the bottom of the fan you will see that I've started outlining the edge of the fan in gold using Kreinik's 002 gold in size #8.

The second photo shows the finished fan.  After the gold edging was finished, I attached rows of Mill Hill's Antique Glass beads (color 05060) on top of the gold painted lines.  These beads are larger than the seed beads used for the sleeves and are a peach/ecru color.  After the beads were in place, I laid long lines of the Bijoux thin metallic down the ribs on top of my Subtlety silk perle.  This is the same bronze metallic thread that makes the boxes on the kimono tunic.  Adding a bit of color brings out the fan shape.
Finally, I laid a long line of the same beads used for the sleeve trim down on top of the Silk Lame Braid central rib.  This brings the fan to life since the ecru colors used to this point made the fan blend into the ecru kimono.

In person the fan sparkles, especially in artificial light.  This plus the gold edging, the blue line of beads and the dark bronze rib lines made it stand out from the similar colors of the kimono.

By the way, the line of blue beads is slightly crooked because I pushed down slightly on the canvas to make a good clear scan and this disturbed the beads.  I moved them back into position and put another two couching stitches in place to keep them in the right place.  If they'd been attached separately instead of a long thread of beads that was couched, they wouldn't move so much but I wanted a continuous line that I couldn't get if each bead went on separately.

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