A dress for Emily

I've started work on the last section of this angel canvas--Emily's dress. Blue is my favorite color, so despite the fact that I've changed the other colors in her costume, I've retained the blue for her dress.

Beginning with the bodice and sleeve, I worked alternating rows of vertical slanted gobelin and stem stitches using four plies of DMC cotton floss #3753. This stitch combination provides a bit of visual interest to a fairly small area. The shadow of her arm was added with tent stitches using four plies of DMC floss #932.

Moving down to the skirt, I continued with the DMC floss #3753, stitching each panel in basketweave to a level I'd previously determined. I skipped over the shadows of the folds, as I'll add those in when I reach the bottom of the skirt.

Regular blog readers can probably guess where I'm going here with the skirt--the irregular bottom line of the basketweave is a not-so-subtle hint!

An apron and a hairdo

Returning to Emily the angel, I finished her apron using Vineyard Silk Classic "Peppermint" in a framed mosaic stitch. This is a great little stitch to provide texture in small areas where compensating can be tricky.

In my stash, I found some Silk & Ivory "Chocolate" for her hair. I worked this in a satin stitch with one strand, angling my stitches away from her face. The right side of the hair was stitched with the canvas upright, and the rest was worked with the canvas turned 90 degrees. The loft provided by the Silk & Ivory thread gives the hair a higher profile against the wings.

Wish my hair were as sleek as Emily's--the humidity here on the Cape is starting to make my naturally wavy hair look like a mushroom cloud!

From sea to shining sea

Today is National Lighthouse Day! To mark the occasion, I'm highlighting lighthouses of the Cape and Islands from my collection.

Top row, from left to right: Brant Point on Nantucket; Race Point, Provincetown; Nobska, Wood's Hole; Nauset, Eastham; and Gay Head (Aquinnah), Martha's Vineyard.

Second row, left to right: Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard; East Chop, Martha's Vineyard; Chatham; and Cape Cod (Highland), Truro.

Three cheers for all of our country's aids to navigation!

A one-sided personality

The verdict is in: Emily is destined to be a one-sided angel!

You may recall I'd noticed a significant discrepancy in the shape of Emily's wings front-to-back when I finished stitching the wings on the front. I overlaid tracing paper on the full front image and transferred the outline, then flipped the tracing paper over and placed it on top of the painted back. Not surprisingly. the outline was way out of whack.

Could I have "fixed" the back, redrawing the outline so that both front and back were in alignment when the finisher seamed them together? Maybe. But the painted outline of the front side was too indecisive to use as a template--I'd need to stitch the entire front first, so I'd have a clear stitch-by-stitch outline to follow.

My time is at a premium right now, as I have a Needlepoint Now column due in a little over two weeks. So, in one of those "Life's too short" moments, I decided to stitch just the front of Emily and let the finisher back her with velveteen. A tree-topper angel will have to wait for another day!

With her face, arm and wings in place, I resumed stitching on her scarf, using Sheep's Silk "Winter Sky" in a diagonal oblong cross stitch over two threads. The left side of the canvas was worked from bottom right to top left, while the right side was stitched from top right to bottom left so the pattern of the variegated thread would be in opposite directions from one side to the other. With Kreinik #12 tapestry braid #2094HL, I added trim to the neckline in tent stitches and a belt in a slanted gobelin stitch.

If you compare this photo to the one in the previous post, you'll see that I'm changing some of the colors in Emily's wardrobe. I'll be blending her dress and apron colors with those of the scarf, so stay tuned!

Can this angel be saved?

I began work on Emily, the tree-topper angel, as I usually do with "people" canvases: I stitched the face first, so I'd have something pretty looking back at me as I worked on the rest of the canvas. The skin tones of the face and arm were stitched in backetweave with four plies of DMC floss #3770 and #950 and DMC floss #761 for the cheeks. Brown and pink floss in cross stitches provided the eyes and mouth.

The wings were worked in a Nobuko stitch with Kreinik #12 tapestry braid #032. I then eyeballed the wings for the backside of the angel and stopped dead in my tracks: no way were they the mirror image of the wings I'd just stitched. To confirm my suspicion, I placed a piece of tracing paper over the stitched wings and outlined the area in pencil, then turned the onion skin over and placed it on top of the wings on the backside. The tracing didn't line up.

I like to stay on my finisher's good side, so I knew that I'd have to make a decision: either scrap the idea of a tree-topper, stitching just the front of the angel "as is" and eventually backing it in velveteen as an ornament, or redrawing the wings on the backside so front and back would ultimately line up. Another thought occurred to me: if the wings were out of whack, there was a good possibility that the rest of the body was, too.

I thought of getting another design to work as the tree-topper, and cruised various shop websites for possibilities. I found a couple--none that I actually fell in love with--and I definitely didn't love the prices!

So I'll go back to poor Emily with my tracing paper and determine just how much work is involved in adjusting her outline front-to-back. There may be a good reason why this canvas doesn't have a signature!

Checking off the colors

I kept a promise to myself and finished all the white background on the Nellie's Imari canvas--a major milestone!

Moving on to the fourth corner medallion, I finished the last area of navy and then filled it in with the red. I worked the leaves around the stylized flower with the pale peach, then switched to the bottom border and filled in the remaining areas needing that color. I also added the last little bits of gray thread. Four colors down, six still to go!

Thus inspired, I worked the diamond band under the vase. I'll finish outlining the red areas in the bottom border next--I just may see an end in sight for this project!

Emily--coming and going

Not to worry--I haven't given up on the Nellie's Imari canvas. But DH commented the other day that all of my recent progress photos look the same--there are so many color changes in the design that a couple of days' work really doesn't show that much progress. So I've decided to add another canvas to the two I'm already working on.

It was years ago, when we still lived in Texas, that I saw the canvas posted here. It was a virtual fire sale on eBay, and I hated the idea of such a graceful little angel without a home. While in the style of a well-known designer of angels, this canvas has no designer's name whatsoever--the first time I think I've seen an unmarked canvas. I decided to give the angel a name--Emily--for the simple reason I like the name!

Emily is a poster child for what NOT to do with a needlepoint canvas: you never fold it! But the seller evidently didn't want to bother securing a mailing tube for the 11 x 18 inch canvas and, instead, folded it down the middle and stuck it in an envelope. Luckily for Emily and me, the fold--now somewhat discolored from years of being stored away-- is in the center of the canvas and doesn't effect the design area at all. So when I mounted the canvas on stretcher bars, I stretched the living daylights out of it and the buckle in the center pretty much flattened out.

I'll be stitching Emily as a tree-topper--I have close to 30 angels stitched and finished over the years and I think I've finally convinced DH that they need their own tree for the holidays. So stay tuned!