If, at first, you don't succeed....

Having finished my egg project, I decided to reward myself by starting the ornament canvas for my son that Gail Hendrix had painted for me. There's a lot of white background to the canvas, and I wanted to add a little texture as the letters and flying eagle mascot will be a solid green. I also didn't want to hassle with a lot of compensation, so I opted for a diagonal mosaic stitch for the background.

While visiting my LNS, I got the bright idea to try a new thread for this canvas: Vineyard Silk Shimmer. I'd been very pleased working with Vineyard Silk Classics, and thought the "Cloud" Shimmer would add a bit of sparkle--it has a very fine silver metallic thread running through it that would also complement the snowflakes in the background.

My first problem occurred in trying to thread the needle--definitely not a good omen! I don't own a needle threader for the simple reason I've never met a thread I couldn't coax through the eye of a needle. After a lot of mumbling, I finally got the needle threaded and started to stitch. What was supposed to be a diagonal mosaic stitch started looking like a bullion stitch-gone-wrong. At this point, I had what is called in our family a "Life's too short" moment, and put Shimmer to one side.

Luckily while at my LNS, I had also purchased a cone of Kreinik #12 tapestry braid #032 to finish off the wings of my Heart Angel. A cone is roughly equivalent to five spools--not a lifetime supply but guaranteed to keep me stitching for quite a while! Rethreading my needle with the Kreinik thread, I was soon happily setting stitches that did look like diagonal mosaic.

As you can see from the photo, it didn't take that long to finish the background! Then I worked the little cap at the top of the ornament with Kreinik #12 tapestry braid #002V and #002 in alternating vertical rows.

I'll go back and give Shimmer another chance on a project down the road--the thread is too expensive to just pitch! And it occurred to me that there may be a "grain" issue here, making it necessary to pay close attention to the direction of the metallic when threading the needle.

Polishing my halo

I'm trying very hard to keep my belated resolutions for 2009, so I finished the Egg for All Seasons that had "gone missing" in my office/studio. This one's called "Baroque," a simple yet graceful little ornament.

"Baroque" was stitched with black Petite Very Velvet, Kreinik #12 tapestry braid #002, and white DMC cotton floss.

Now that this project is finished, the siren song of a new, unstitched canvas is calling to me. There are less than nine months until Christmas, so I think I'd better answer the call and work on the canvas Gail Hendrix painted for me to give my son. After all, getting that ornament finished was another resolution!

Belated resolutions

I didn't make any New Year's resolutions for 2009--maybe I should have! On a recent car trip of two hours' duration, I was bemoaning the fact that I didn't have anything to stitch. You can't exactly haul a canvas on 18-inch-square stretcher bars in the car with you, and that's the size of my Kyrgyz pillow. The thought of it between you and the front passenger airbag just isn't pretty. I knew I had an unfinished Egg for All Seasons that I could work on, but for neither love nor money could I find it in the controlled chaos that is my office/studio.

I also had wanted to do a piece of needlepoint to commemorate No. 1 son's graduation from college last May. But like the cobbler's children, who are the last to get new shoes, my poor guys don't even have Christmas stockings. So, to make up for lost time, I asked Gail Hendrix of Squiggee Designs to design an ornament for my son's alma mater. Here it is!

It arrived in no time, and, delighted with my purchase, I went rummaging in the chaos for the appropriately-sized stretcher bars. That was when I finally found the unfinished Egg for All Seasons.

So now approaching the end of March, I've finally made some resolutions: (1) Clean up my act; (2) Never start a new project before finishing the old one; (3) Always have a project handy to stitch in the car: and (4) Finish this college ornament before No. 1 son's younger brother hopefully graduates this December. But being no angel, I figure that three out of four isn't bad!

Thinking warm thoughts

It's only one week until April, but I'm peering over my computer monitor looking at snowflakes dancing by my window. This weather phenomenon is called "ocean-effect snow," one of the blessings--or curses--of living 35 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean.

A day like this makes me wish I could join Polly the Penguin, playing her ukulele on the shore of Waikiki. This little penguin was actually commissioned by my friend Sandy Rabideau of Peacock Alley Needlepoint, who shares my quirky sense of humor and wanted a gift for a penguin-loving friend living in Hawaii.

Polly's body is stitched with black Petite Very Velvet and "Snow" Felicity's Garden. Except for a touch of Kreinik #12 tapestry braid for the ukulele strings, the rest of the ornament is stitched in DMC cotton floss. I used diagonal cashmere stitched horizontally for the water and Nobuko for the sand.

Bringing new meaning to color

A little more than one-quarter of the Kyrgyz pillow is now stitched. I've been a good girl and have kept up with the background stitching so far! Except for the golden brown, all of the colors I'll be using appear in this progress photo.

The more I've stitched, the more I've been wondering why the Kyrgyzstani woman who embroidered the original tush kyiz chose the colors she did. Her threads were undoubtedly hand-dyed using vegetable dyes. But did she use specific colors to convey special meaning to this wall hanging for a marital bed?

After doing a little research on the symbolism of color in Asian cultures, here's what I found out about the meaning of the colors I'm using:

Red: Happiness, marriage and prosperity
Pink: Marriage
Blue: Self-cultivation and wealth
Green: Eternity, family, harmony, health, peace and prosperity
Gold: Strength and wealth
Brown: Earth, hearth, home and endurance
Black: In its positive connotions, career, knowledge and formality

So in essence, the mother of the bride or groom who created the original hanging was conveying any number of good wishes to the newly-wed couple through her colorful stitching. Considering that the almost 7-foot fragment from which I adapted my project is part of a much larger piece of embroidery, I can only hope for the stitcher's sake that the Kyrgyzs believed in long engagements!

When the swallows come back to Capistrano

The Mission of San Juan Capistrano de Sajavit, the seventh in the California mission chain, was dedicated on November 1, 1776. Around March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, thousands of swallows have for years visited the area in route from wintering in Argentina to summering in California's agricultural valleys.

Unfortunately, recent restoration of the mission has prompted the birds to find homes in the parking lot across the street. Ornithologists are hoping that, when construction is completed, the swallows will once again return to their historic roosts in the bell tower and grounds of the mission itself.

I "reconstructed" this mission with a variety of overdyes, including Caron Watercolors and The Thread Gatherer's Sheep's Silk, along with DMC floss and perle cotton. There are lots of French knots in this one!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Patrick the Penguin and I wanted to be among the first to wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day! 'Tis a grand day for me, who's 100% Irish! But everyone is a wee bit Irish on March 17, and it's a great day to lighten up! I'll still be stitching black Silk & Ivory for my Kyrgyz pillow background, but I'll be thinking GREEN!