A Learning Experience (a Big Mess)

New things never quite end up the way I had imagined. I wanted to use some of the stitches on this tree from Sharon B's stitch dictionary, which you can find on PINTANGLE, so chose as a base for the "tinsel" her heavy chain stitch. (You can find this dictionary on the list on the right side of her blog.)

The arrow points to an error I made when I decided not to stitch paint that line, centering it - it is quite off center and looks very strange. However, a few well placed silk ribbon flowers and a few French knots should disguise it, as I will NOT be ripping out anything here.

I switched to a chenille needle for the chain stitch, and found it quite easy and very effective, as it's fat and stands up well off the surface of the canvas. I didn't have the Kreinik braid I wanted to use in my stash, so used the 002V 1/16" ribbon, which has a lovely color and sheen. The lower arrow points to the place where I stitched in the mark for the next swag and failed to center it either. I'll have to make do with silk ribbon flowers here as well.


It's amazing how the curved lines become straight ones when the canvas is folded around to make the cone! The arrow points to a dip which is only there because of the way I'm holding the piece - it's just kind of crumpled and held in my left hand while I took the picture.


The lower arrows show where I extended the stitches down through the sawtooth gaps in order to continue the Nobuko stitches correctly, and as they are "blended," it will be even better. Again, the line looks wavy because of the way I'm holding it.

















I redrew the line that was light blue, and made it totally centered for better appearance. The arrow at the bottom points to the center mark I had made when I drew the lower curve. You can see how far off center my blue line was - YUK!


Anyway, back to the stitching, a good movie, and hopefully some more inspiration. I do have something else working that I'll show on Freebies hopefully tomorrow.