Yesterday I talked about all the white areas on the various parts of this little stocking. I've picked five brands of white threads from my stash to use on the stocking. The somewhat disarranged skein on the left is DMC cotton floss #Blanc. (It had an unfortunate encounter with Tommy the Cat who grabbed it off the table and attacked it yesterday evening.) The top row left is Flair #F502 and the top right is Burmilana #3891. The bottom row left is DMC Blanc #8 perle cotton and the bottom row right is Impressions #0057. All are stark whites, although as Judy pointed out yesterday in the Comments, I really don't have to worry about the shade of white too much as different stitches and textures reflect the light differently.
I started stitching the snowman's body with Flair and the snow on the ground using the DMC #8 perle. The Flair sparkles while the cotton perle is more matte in texture so the snowman stands out a little at the base against the snowy ground. I'm not sure how well you can tell the difference between the snowman and the ground as this is something obvious in person but not in photographs. The photo shows also the white dots and lines on the scarf which I stitched with my Burmilana. Burmilana is an acrylic/wool blend so it looks fuzzy. That's appropriate for a knit winter scarf.
Although it is not white, I should mention that the blue shadows in the snow and along the snowman's body are stitched with ThreadworX's overdyed Kreinik #91018 which is a beautiful pale blue. It is perfect to add a bit of shadow and sparkle to this canvas. Many thanks to Beth at ThreadworX for sending this thread for me to try. I do love the look of icy blue shadows that it gives the design.
By the way, all the white stitches are tent stitches except for the Burmilana areas on the scarf. The dots there are cross stitches and the long lines of white are elongated cross stitches.
Tomorrow I'll talk about the snowman's face and the blue sky in the background.
By the way, yesterday's Canvas of the Day has been identified as to designer. This is Dancing Lion by Melissa Shirley.
http://www.needlepointalley.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=npa&Product_Code=a71-565a
Credit to whom credit is due! Thanks for letting us know, Melissa.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
4 comments:
Other great snow threads... boucle (in French knots), or Alabaster if you want sparkly snow. Try mixing the Alabaster with beads or with Kreinik #100. The boucle is tricky to work with, mostly because it has a right and wrong "side", but I've found that if the thread passes fairly easily through the needle eye (without hanging up), the knots will also behave as you make them. If they give you fits, try threading the needle from the other end of the thread.
Thanks for the boucle tips, Gini. I've not used it more than once or twice, so this is great for me! Alabaster is hard to find here but very nice. It's a lot like Snow but doesn't come in the variety of colors Snow does as far as I know.
Jane, I am going to gather and send my Soft Sensations. Thanks, Robin
You are a sweetie, Robin! Don't send much, just a sample for me to play around with. I don't want to take it ALL from your stash!
Post a Comment