Odds and Ends

Robin Atkins' Blessing Book Cover

I have lots of loose ends to tie up before I actually start stitching on Luna, my vampire from the Ladies of the Night series.  First of all, yes, I changed the background color on  Blog again.  When I switched to a photo of my last finished canvas for the header, I realized that the new pink background didn't look good with it, so the background became pale pumpkin in honor of Halloween.   I think the contrast between the black and navy blue and dark green lettering in the titles and text on Blog is not too much but do let me know if this color combo is hard to see.  I want Blog to be about easy of reading above all.  That's why Blog has a plain background and fairly simple layout.  But I do get bored with the plainness and change the colors and photos occasionally.

Gay Ann Rogers has completed the uploading of photos of her samplers on her website.  It's certainly not all of her work but showcases her style and the range of charted pieces she has taught over the years.  You can start browsing 17 pages of stitching beauty here.  Just click on the Gallery number whatever button on the right side of each page to continue on.  She will be selling some of these patterns from her website starting next week so keep an eye open on the site.  She sells only once a year and the patterns available vary.  You may have to wait until next year or the next to be able to buy the one you really want.
http://www.gayannrogers.com/site_2/Hollyhock_House.html

I've got some great resources saved up for you to browse while you wait for me to get organized enough to start stitching.  Are you interested in a lovely silk ribbon flower tutorial?  Sundance shows you how to make a quick and beautiful flower for an ornament or box top with wired ribbon.  I think a wreath of red flowers for Christmas would be spectacular!
http://sundanceinstitches.blogspot.com/2010/09/wire-ribbon-flower-for-needlepoint.html

Ruth Schmuff has updated her shop class page.  There are lots of great classes from great teachers to browse and lust after.
http://www.bedeckedandbeadazzled.com/visitingTeachers.php

The only thing missing from the class page are Ruth's own mystery classes.  Ruth teaches these in the shop and via mail.  Everyone knows what canvas she will teach but no one (and that includes Ruth!) knows what the end result will be.  Here are the newest canvases waiting for The Ruth Treatment.
http://www.bedeckedandbeadazzled.com/mysteryClasses.php

Finally, Robin Akins is giving away copies of her first book on beading as a PDF file.  This is a great opportunity to learn how to do bead compositions.  Robin is a bead artist who makes lovely jewelry, but she is most well known for her improvised beaded scenes made from a huge assortment of bead shapes and colors.  The photo above is her Blessings book cover.  Amazing, isn't it?
http://www.robinatkins.com/OneBeadAtATime_RAtkins.pdf

I know you are thinking that you don't need another craft, but I urge you to read through her book.  It's really about creativity and drawing inspiration from your feelings, which I think will help us stitchers become more adventuresome with our stitching.  I'm actually urging everyone to become explorers with needles and thread, and I think this book might help.

Next time we'll talk about Luna's background.

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

October Sales

I've noticed some October sales on the WWW.  First of all, I got an email from Ehrman that they are selling designs they intend to discontinue at a discount.  Here are the sale items. You may have to choose a currency before you can see the sale.
http://www.ehrmantapestry.com/clearance.cfm?Currency=1

Busy Needle in Tucson has put all their in stock animal canvases, charts and kits on sale this month.  They call it their Noah's Ark sale.  Pick up animals of your choice here.
http://www.busyneedle.com/

Canvases Be Gone has new items in for October, including the birdwatcher canvas above, which I think is a Charley Harper design. It seemed a perfect design for autumn here in the States.
http://www.canvasesbegone.com/new+in+october/

If you know of any really good sales (25% off or more) or are a shop owner with some real bargains looking for a good home, post details in the Comments or email me directly at chilly hollowat hot maildotcom and I'll update this Blog entry.  Thanks.

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

Progress on Luna: Choosing Stitches and Threads and Needles

I'm sure folks are eagerly waiting my first progress on Luna.   That's it!  Yes, that photo right there.  That's my Luna progress....

 I've been working testing stitches for two evenings now and a third evening is happening tonight.  I'm also reading my stitch books and trying to come up with ideas from them.  This pre-planning takes a lot of time but it saves ripping out.

I know SharonG can see an entire canvas from start to finish and rarely has to rip out her choices, but I don't have that skill.  So I do test stitching, auditioning stitches and when I find the right one, then I audition threads.

Just how do I choose stitches and threads?  Look at Luna again.  (Click on the photo to enlarge it if you need to.)  I look at the shape I'm going to stitch and find a stitch that is that shape, too. For example, she's got a long gown that sweeps to the left at the hem.  Long narrow vertical stitches are perfect for the body of the dress while diagonal stitches that are oriented NE to SW would be perfect for the hem.

Then I think about threads.  Is a gown like hers wooly like a fuzzy sweater? No.  So hairy wool threads are probably out.  I need something sleek--something that looks like silk or satin fabric--for the gown.  That makes a silk thread a good choice to start with, and one that has both black and shades of gray would be great.  It's easier to mix cotton brands of thread with other cotton brands, or at least the less shiny silks.  In some instances it looks great to have a wool thread mixed with a metallic (Santa's coat, for example) but often it is better not to mix thread types.  But that's getting a bit far down the road.

At this point I am looking for stitches with the right shape.

I'm also looking for stitches that convey an effect that is not there.  Look at the ground at Luna's feet and then at the background.  There's a lot of empty space there.  No designs at all.  Sometimes that makes a realistic design (ok, a vampire isn't exactly realistic, but if they existed, they would look like Luna) look odd.  Right now Luna is floating in space so I want to ground her by stitching something for her to walk on.  I decided that paving stones would be a good effect.  So I started looking for stitches that looked like irregular paving stones.  The stitches at the upper right of my sample that look like stone bricks are what I've chosen.  See how I have repeated the rows again and again in different threads?  I was testing whether the stitch looked the most like pavers using wool (100% cashmere Empress from Pure Palette) in the dark gray and olive green rows, metallic (a black-gray Kreinik) or cotton floss (light gray DMC and light lilac High Cotton).

I am alsto going to be using new needles on this piece.  My practice is to always toss my old needles after a project ends.  I have acid hands which tarnish needles.  I've also found that constant use on large projects roughens the needle eye.  I am going to switch to new needles when I pick up Stars again since she's half done.  I read an article by Amy Bunger once where she says that using old needles is the most common error she sees.  Needles are relatively cheap, so I follow her advice.

I'm going to test the Bohn needles from France and also use a new John James needle called Tweens.  The Bohns come 6 needles to a pack so I bought a package of 22s and 24s and also picked up a package of size 21 needles from John James which are three to a pack.  I use 20 and 22 needles the most on 18 count but I also occasionally use larger and smaller needles depending on the thread and stitch.  I'll let you know what I think about these as I work with them.  But if you'd excuse me for now, I have a few more books to browse and a few more stitches to try out.

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

Go Read This Article

I take a lot of photos and scans of needlework for Blog.  It's not easy, so I was thrilled when I found this article by Tricia Nguyen about taking close up photos with a digital camera.  Great stuff!
http://www.thistle-threads.com/macrophotos/TakingQuickMacroPhotos970.pdf

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

Introducing Luna

Luna, from Leigh Designs' Ladies of the Night Series

I should subtitle this "Jane Loses Her Mind".

Yes, my next project is Luna, from the Leigh Deigns vampire series called Ladies of the Night.  A friend of mine, upon seeing the canvas, said she was Sophisticated Halloween, elegant and erie.

Here's the whole series.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp513x.html

She's also big.  Luna is 16 inches high and 8 wide, on 18 count NP canvas.  That will enable me to do a lot of detail but there's a ton of background!  She's on 20x12 stretcher bars so I am definitely going to use my K's metal floor stand when stitching her.

Luna also has a lot of black-on-black detail.  You can see here that she has long black hair, a long black gown, a long black cloak and blackbirds surrounding her.  We've all seen how hard it is to see the detail of complex black stitches on Stars.  I am going to have to be extra creative to be able to stitch these areas in such a way that they don't all blend together in one big black blob.

Fortunately, there are some great areas that aren't basically black.  I love the cluster of fairly modern tombstones at the right corner.  This for me dates the cemetery as early 20th Century.  I wonder what Luna is doing here.  Is she visiting family?  Gloating over the grave of an enemy?  Just scouting territory for her next Halloween party and tut tutting at the shoddy maintenance?  What do you think?

I also love the atmosphere of this canvas. Look carefully at the background.  It's a custom color called Storm Cloud, which is gray with charcoal splattered dots here and there.  I think of fog and mist when I look at it.  I think it is going to be great fun to add atmosphere in the background.


As is my usual practice, I've made color and black and white copies of this canvas for reference purposes.  I'll certainly need them to help me stitch weeds at the base of the cracked tombstone and these may come in handy other places.  I make copies before I put the piece on stretcher bars, and I take lots of reference photos of various areas, too.  You can't see some detail in photos (I didn't realize Luna had an oval amethyst ring until I saw her in person) but scans and xerox copies capture everything.

The next step is to think about the canvas and who Luna is, start testing stitches, and analyze the canvas itself to figure out what I want to emphasize and how.

I should reveal that Luna was sent to me by Leigh to stitch as a model and to do a stitch guide which I'll sell.  I know there is a lot of interest in the series and hopefully some of the problems I wrestle with will give you ideas on how to stitch your own Lady of the Night.

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