A Touch of Gold at the Finish

Yesterday I took one last look at the Stuart Plaid Lion, trying to figure out if the lion's body and mane was finished or if I needed to add more stem stitches here and there.  I ended up adding a few highlights to the mane using a strand of Accentuate (gold #024) and then laid long stitches with the same thread across the diagonal red skip tent stitch background.   The skip tent stitches run from the NE to the SW and the long gold Accentuate stitches are laid from the NW to the SE.  Using a little Accentuate adds a bit of pizzazz to the canvas.  This is a royal symbol of the Stuart line of English kings and queens, after all!

I think this design is finished but I'll take one last look today before sending it off to Leigh to be made up into a model while I write the stitch guide.

On another topic entirely, Old World Designs' website page about their monthly club of California ornaments has updated to show photos of all the designs in stitched form.  Love that cable car!
http://www.oldworlddesigns.com/california.html

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

Newsletters and the Giant Cat

I almost forgot to remind you that it is early May, which means Amy Bunger has a new newsletter up on her website.  If you like Halloween designs, you'll want to see the newest home study piece for the Haunted House.  There are links to earlier newsletters here as well, just in case you missed reading some of them.
http://www.amybunger.com/current_enewsletters.html

If you've missed earlier photos of the monsters that live in the Kelly Clark House as stitched by Amy, then you can browse the photo gallery here to see before and after photos of the painted canvases.  Click Next to navigate.
http://www.amybunger.com/albums/album_image/7271829/5639584.htm

Speaking of classes, Ruth Schmuff has almost finished her Giant Cat canvas from HP Designs.  This is a Craftsman-style canvas and she's done great things with it.  My favorite parts are the lovely background stitch and the beads that define the ground the cat walks on.
http://www.notyourgrandmothersneedlepoint.com/2010/05/me-ooooow.html

Busy Needle has posted a newsletter with tidbits about the wonderful things they saw at the January TNNA show.  Read all about it here--
http://www.busyneedle.com/Newsletter/index.htm

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

Farrah and the Golden Crown

Saturday the Stuart Plaid Lion and I took a field trip to see neighbors who used to needlepoint.  Fading eyesight, golf, and  trips to Africa have meant that my neighbors don't do needlepoint any more but they are always interested in what I'm stitching and give me good input when I need it.

We talked mostly about the crown that the lion reaches towards on the design.  That's my own invention as it wasn't part of the background, but I wanted to add something besides the fading lines from the plaid and came up with a lovely little red crown with a few crystal beads to enhance it.  However, Leigh Herself said a golden crown would not weigh down the background the way the red crown would, so I wanted second opinions about how gold would look versus red before I ripped out the red crown.  We decided gold would be better so out came the beads and the red holographic Kreinik to be replaced by gold holographic 1/16 inch ribbon in Chromo Gold 002L.  It looks great!  Leigh, you were right.

I'm not even going to put the beads back.  The gold crown doesn't need them to Pop! off the background.  Here's a close up.

By the way, I'm still working on the lion's mane.  I've added a few stitches to the body and extended the stem stitches down toward the paws, but mostly I am adding thread a little at a time to the mane.  Think Farrah Fawcett's hair with plenty of highlights.  That's what I am aiming for.  Here's Farrah herself for those too young to remember her famous hair--

I've got at least one more night's stitching on the mane but this piece is getting close to the end.

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

Charts Galore UPDATED

The charted canvas/counted thread folks in northern Virginia are cheering as The Scarlet Thread is being reborn as an online shop.  The economic downturn closed the shop almost a year ago, which about broke my heart as besides a ton of charted designs, they carried a huge selection of threads that no one else here had.  The online Scarlet Thread is barebones when it comes to threads, beads and tools so far, but there are a ton of charts for you to browse.
http://stores.intuitwebsites.com/ScarletThread/-strse-Charts/Categories.bok

Who said counted thread was dead?!

UPDATE:  Got a nice message from Judi at Thistle Needleworks.  You might remember Judi as one of the victims I've interviewed here on Blog and as the person behind the Thistle Needleworks and the Alex Paras Needle Arts websites.
http://www.thistleneedleworks.com/

http://store.apneedlearts.com/index.html

Judi says, "It may be a small point, but I believe the designs that are featured at the shop you blogged about are Charted Canvas designs for the most part and not Counted Thread designs. Those of us in the industry distinguish between charted/counted designs worked on canvas (Counted or Charted Canvas) and those worked on fabric (Counted Thread)."


Thanks for the correction, Judi. You can see how ignorant I am of the proper terms, not to mention how much of a beginner I am doing charted work!  My apologies to the stitchers of such things.  Keep up the corrections, folks.  No one knows it all, especially me.

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

This and That

Since the lion stitching is pretty slow going right now, I thought I'd post a general message about this and that rather than boring you with a photo of the Stuart Plaid Lion that isn't too much different from what I posted yesterday. One doesn't eat a watermelon in a minute, you know!  Besides, there is lots of interesting stuff in the stitching Blog-o-Sphere you might like to know about.

First of all, Ruth Schmuff has put her first CD of stitches on the iPhone!  Cell phones don't work well in Chilly Hollow or I would be trying to figure out how to afford a smart phone, all the wonderful apps, and a monthly cell phone bill that would keep me in needlepoint threads forever very nicely, thank you.  I hope more folks than Ruth and SuZy Murphy take advantage of smart phone technology so we have more stitch information on the go.  These smart phone apps are terrific for the Big City Stitcher on the go.
http://www.notyourgrandmothersneedlepoint.com/2010/04/another-giant-step-for-needlepoint.html

Anyone who has followed the story of the 18th Century reproduction embroidered jacket will want to pick up the newest issue of Victoria magazine next week.  It has a feature article about the creation of the jacket.  If you are interested in a behind-the-scenes peek at what it takes to have a magazine publish articles on needlework, you will want to browse Tricia's blog to read how much work was involved to get this published.
http://thistle-threads.com/blog/

Remember Elmer, the candy cane dog canvas I just finished stitching?  (photo above)  He's one of the animal canvases from Kirk and Hamilton, an English painted canvas design team.  Needlepoint.com is having a trunk show of their canvases and says that they create the Elizabeth Bradley designs.  Interesting tip about a great new company!  Here's the blog entry with more photos of Kirk and Hamilton's more classic designs.  If you go to the home page of their website and look at What's New, the very last 8-10 canvases are new Kirk and Hamilton designs with their signature mix of humorous Christmas pieces and traditional designs.
http://www.needlepoint.com/blog/?p=451

In other gossip, remember Hope Hanley and her books about needlepoint?  Her daughter stitches for The Point of It All in D.C. and the shop blog features some of her current work, including a huge dog rug her mother designed.
http://blog.thepointofitallonline.com/2010/04/staff-spotlight.html

Lovers of all things Asian like me will be enthralled with Jane Smith's new Japanese Embroidery project.  With the help of her JE teacher, Jane has simplified a wood block design of a Japanese woman playing with a yo-yo and transferred it onto silk.  She is starting to stitch it in the JE style.  You can see the first stages here and start to imagine all the work she is going to do.
http://nuido.blogspot.com/2010/04/playing-with-colour.html

Watching her work is tempting me to start an original design myself, but that will have to wait.  I have too many things to accomplish already this year.

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