Counted Canvaswork Alert

The April 13 and April 28 entries on Scarlet Thread's blog show off the newest counted canvaswork projects from LizArt and from  Carolyn Mitchell Designs.  Counted work is alive and well!
http://stitchything.blogspot.com/

By the way, the shop has the award-winning Cat's Eyes chart in stock.
http://stores.intuitwebsites.com/ScarletThread/-strse-2977/2-Cat%27s-Eyes/Detail.bok

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com

Why Raymond Crawford Is My Hero

Many of us have probably seen and admired Raymond Crawford's painted canvases, but I had no idea what he gets up to in his spare time.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2011-04-28/news/raymond-crawford-actual-citizen-fought-the-city-on-fracking-and-won/

Here's Raymond's website.  All you see there is needlepoint canvases but the next time I visit, I know I'll be visiting a hero's website.  After all, someone who works this hard to preserve his little bit of heaven is a hero, don't you think?  And he designs great NP, too!
http://www.raymondcrawford.com/

Many thanks to Tara for telling me about this article.  Where would Blog be without its spies?!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com

Red Geisha Mishaps

Red Geisha Blue Lines Version One

Folks who read Blog sometimes think I Know It All.  I don't always talk about the dead ends, the ripping out, the hours spent playing around with stitches or browsing my stitching books looking for inspiration.  However, these mistakes are what make for better stitchers. If you don't know something is wrong and try to fix it, you never advance your stitching skills.

In the photo of Red Geisha above, look at the pink line down below her nose that is flanked with two blue lines.  There are other blue lines to the left of that pink area, too.  All those are stem stitched using Silk Lame Braid (size 18), which is a silk/metallic thread that is lightly twisted.  It's a pretty thread and added a lot of shine to the canvas.  But I stopped using it because it looked clumsy and awkward stitched up.  The thread (although I liked the color and the bit of metallic sheen) was too heavy for the area.

I switched to the slightly smaller Trebizond, which is a size 8 perle in silk and laid it along the painted blue lines, then couched it down with a #8 fine braid Kreinik in a similar blue so that I had the same sparkle that I liked with the Silk Lame Braid.  Here's what it looked like after--

Red Geisha Blue Lines Version Two

I prefer the couched version myself.  It looks smoother and doesn't stand out too much.  The moral is Don't Settle for something that bugs you. You can probably come up with something better if you take the time to think about what you like (the sparkle) and what you don't (the thickness of the thread and the jagged line of stem stitch) and come up with ways to minimize what you don't care for while preserving what you do.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com

Class Announcements

The Art Needlepoint Company (they sell giclee art reproduction needlepoint canvases) is having a free class about stitching faces.
http://artneedlepoint.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=1264&PostID=71065

Bedecked and Beaddazzled is sponsoring an Anna-Marie Winter class.
http://www.notyourgrandmothersneedlepoint.com/2011/04/promise.html

Janet Perry is doing a class about creating your own stitch guide.
http://www.nuts-about-needlepoint.com/diy-stitch-guide-email-course-now-open

Cyberclasses are a great way to stretch your stitching wings and learn something interesting, aren't they?

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com

Red Geisha's Basketweave Challenge

Melissa Shirley's Red Geisha Underway

When I first sat and studied Red Geisha before I started stitching her, I knew that there needed to be a ton of tent stitches on this canvas.  First of all, nothing does faces like basketweave, and secondly, because this will be a purse, it needs the durability of tent stitches.  So how did I introduce interest into a piece that has to be mostly basketweave?

I scattered fancy stitches among the tent stitches, of course!  Look at the right side of the canvas in the photo above.  Naturally the flower petals are stitched in embroidery-type stitches.  The petals are all small and the stitches not very long.  Hopefully they will be hard to snag when the purse is carried.  I then added cashmere stitches over the pink blocks in the background and then added a few more in the same color as the tent stitches to fancy up the area some.  The bulk of the upper left corner of the design is in basketweave but there are fancier elements mixed in so that the design isn't all Boring Basketweave.

Closeup of the first row of flower stitch

You can see how I continued adding fancier elements among the basketweave in the lower left corner of the design.  I did two rows of a fancy floral stitch, then basketweaved inside and around the flowers.  For this effect I used a slightly raspberry shade of red floss for the flowers and a more red shade of a silk/wool mix for the basketweave.  Look again at the larger photograph.  Bet you missed the two rows of flowers between the cheek and apple blossoms when you first looked!  The colors are very close but as the canvas is tilted the flowers become more or less visible.  Since a purse is carried, I am hoping the same "now you see flowers, now you don't" effect will make this an interesting canvas to watch without totally sacrificing durability.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com