A lot of blue sky

Finally!--I finished stitching the sky behind the beagle in Nenah Stone's canvas.

The dog is obviously the most important element in this design, so I wanted to keep the background subtle yet attractive. So--once again--I needle-blended, beginning at the top of the canvas with DMC floss #3755.

Using four plies of the floss, I worked down to the top of the dog's head in basketweave, staggering the bottom stitches randomly. I then added DMC floss #3255 into the mixture, using one ply combined with three plies of DMC floss #3755. I continued subtracting one ply of the darker shade and adding one of the lighter to the mix until I reached four plies of DMC floss #3255. At this point, DMC floss #3841 was worked into the formula. By the time I hit bottom, I was using one ply of DMC #3255 and three plies of DMC #3841.

The canvas is now actually about one-third stitched! I think I'll scour my stash for some shamrock threads next, so stay tuned.