Finishing with Betsy Morgan

Mary Corbet has reviewed Betsy Morgan's first book on her website.  It's called "Willing Hands," which is the name of Betsy's embroidery company.  It's published by Inspirations magazine out of Australia, so you know the illustrations are going to be absolutely beautiful.
https://www.needlenthread.com/2020/07/willing-hands-full-of-great-embroidery-finishes.html

Normally I don't talk about embroidery here, but Betsy's a very talented embroiderer and designer and a great teacher.  She used to live over the mountain from me so I have seen her work up close and personal.  Fabulous!  She's wildly talented.

So when Mary says her book, which is all about creating etuis and smalls, is a wonderful guide for finishing, I thought I'd mention it here.  Folks are always asking how to learn to do their own finishing.  I don't think Betsy's etuis are going to be easy to put together but the little needlebooks and other things that go into the etuis are not difficult.

If you love beautiful embroidery, admire etuis, and you want to learn how they are made, this is a good place to start.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright July 8, 2020 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Horse County Chic Goes on a Buying Spree

Horse Country Chic is stocking up on painted canvases.  I suspect most of us are, both trying to keep our favorite shops afloat, and give us something nice to look forward to.
http://horsecountrychic.blogspot.com/2020/07/my-growing-needlepoint-stash.html

Even I bought something for the first time in about three years—my Pharaoh canvas from Leigh Designs!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright July 7, 2020 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

The Funniest Thing I've Seen All Day

This hilarious "Best Sellers" book canvas from Froopy Designs is the funniest thing I've seen all week.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/816661501/hand-painted-best-sellers-needlepoint?ref=shop_home_active_37&frs=1

("Not Today, Satan" is pretty hilarious, too.)

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright July 3, 2020 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Let's Create a Pharaoh Statue

Brick Stitch on Head

Last time I showed you my Leigh Designs Pharaoh Ramses II, I was stitching away on the statue.  I'd chosen to use brick stitch over two for the coronet on top of the Pharaoh's head, then tent stitches on the rest of him.  The photo above shows my progress.

I swear that the tent stitches on his face and the brick stitches on top of his head are the same color of DMC cotton.  They are even done from the same skein, so there are no dye lot color changes.  What you see is the play of light on the straight brick stitches versus less light bouncing off Pharaoh's face.   There is a darker terra-cotta color in DMC cotton but it was too red to use, so my only option is to rip out the brick stitches, even though I like the texture of them on his headpiece.

All Tent Stitches

I ended up with what you see above.  It's much better.  I still really like brick stitch, however, so I used it on the cream and gold stripes on the left side.  It's running in a horizontal fashion.  I just turned the canvas on its side so Pharaoh was lying down to stitch it smoothly.

More Brick Stitch—and More Ripping

And that's too much texture!  Sigh  I'm going to have to rip the brick stitches out and try for a smoother look that doesn't detract from the fan and statue.  Oh, well, on the bright side I managed to do basketweave on the cream section at the top under the ornament hardware and in the lime section of the fan.  I had originally planned something else for the lime sections of the fan but I don't have lime in the threads I plan to use.  Given the difficulty of shopping for it, I opted to use tent stitches for the lime. 

By the way, the lime area is done in size 8 perle cotton but I had to rip out the size 8 perle cotton section in ecru.  The ecru thread seemed thicker than the lime, even though they are both size 8.  The lime is from Prescencia and the ecru is from DMC, so probably the manufacturer of one makes a skinner version of size 8 than the other.  Not to worry, I used three plies of DMC cotton floss in ecru and that looks good.

Plans change all the time as I stitch.  Sometimes things don't work, sometimes I can't get threads or embellishments I want.  So needlepoint embellishment for me is always changing and evolving to meet my mental idea of what I want a painted canvas to be.  This involves a lot of ripping out but sometimes you don't know what it will look like until you try and sometimes the threads surprise you.  On Pharaoh the threads and stitches certainly threw me a lot of curve balls!

Stay tuned to see what surprises the threads and stitches have for me next time.  

By the way, I have listed all the postings about this design on the Chilly Hollow Stitch Guides blog so you can easily follow along as I blog stitch this.

https://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com/2020/08/pharoahs-fan-finished.html

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright June 26, 2020 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Pointing It Out Interviews Madeleine Elizabeth UPDATED

The latest Pointing It Out Podcast is an interview with the new designer Madeline Elizabeth.  You'll hear about her inspiration and see some of the new Dallas trade show pieces for Fall 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm0V0S2yZSU

Here is the Madeline Elizabeth website, starting with the Spring 2020 needlepoint designs.
https://www.madeleineelizabeth.net/current-designs-copy

UPDATE:  Fiber Talk interviewed Madeline here.
https://wetalkfiber.com/2020/08/23/fiber-talk-with-madeleine-harwell/

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright June 23, 2020 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.