Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Sea Shells and Other Jeweled Things in Needlepoint

A really nice lady, who used to buy from me when I was wholesaling, called me about two weeks ago and asked for five of a seashell I had done for her before - I told her I had discontinued it, implying that I had trashed the pattern.

That didn't work, as she offered to send me a picture - so I agreed, as actually I still had the picture, myself, and then found the file with many many patterns for these shells and fishes and other sea critters, etc. I did during that binge from about 8 years ago.

Anyway, I was looking through the file and finding things I had forgotten about that I might decide to resurrect soon. I had started with antique fish jewelry, and then progressed to one of my avocations - the sea shells. Marine biology holds great fascination for me.

I took liberties here, though, in that I painted them with bright pastels in "Caribbean colors," and in most cases, added "jewels." The scallop shell has a fine sprinkling of pearls, which I stitched on the model I worked with Renaissance shimmer. (Painting this shell is the subject also of a post I just finished on my other blog - Freebies, etc., dealing with paint brushes.)

The pink and yellow scallop shell is actually the exact color of it in "real life." I have a wonderful huge book among my other books on shells, and was delighted to find this one. Of course I also did it in aqua, and added pearls.

The green tree snail is actually very very green, so I kind of ad-libbed with the color and made it look more like a sea shell, as I really like the shape - and added a few pearls.
Where there are sea shells, there might also be parrots - this one was adapted from a piece of jewelry! It was fun to stitch, but I won't paint it commercially - too hard to draw!!
Oh well. Back now to painting Mexican tiles and Talavera crosses. The shells were a refreshing break from "work."

No comments: