Green.....

 

Grow the Leaves... Oh!

Can You remember, Dear Readers, about a year ago when I first posted the "Summer Green" Rhododendron shrub at the Folly Garden and wondered if it really had enough leaves to qualify as "finished"? Well, as some of you might realize, I decided it needed quite a few more leaves to really look right as THE evergreen shrub beside the Folly Porch. It is Evergreen, after all, so only steps aside briefly for the Blossoming version which takes a week or so, and for the Snowy winter version which comes and goes quickly only in Winter, so it had better be really worthy of all the rest of those months of viewing! Above you can see the "revised" version, newly "completed".... even though there are probably a few more leafy stems I will add, in particular in the corner by the Tree House. If you can't remember exactly how it looked before.... I have added a photo from Last Year....

 

And I know the lighting is different, 

which makes it really hard to judge.... 

but I also know that the newer version has nearly 400 leaves

 more than last year's version!

 

Here you can see it again... this years (version #3-2) 

from the side of the Garden near the Tree House. 

It definitely looks "denser" to me.... which was the whole point!

 

 The "trick" was to add the "understory leaves" which are

 the previous year's growth still attached to the shrub. 

And believe me, this was tricky to do! 

And very time consuming. 

And as some of you know, last years "green" shrub

 got a coating of "snow" during the Winter 

and is now the "Snowy Winter" version (#2-2)!

 So nothing was wasted after all!

 

And yes, Mr. Gnome is hoping that some of the disruptions

 to his usually quiet neighborhood will be finished for a while.

 

And maybe I can get working on some of my many other

 unfinished projects.... the list is Looooooong!

 

And Speaking of Green, Dear Readers,

 some of the threads I had ordered arrived

 and among them was a blue-green shade

 that I could use in my Astrological Cushions! 

 

The Leo Astrological cushion design

 was asking for four shades of green and one of gold

 for the ground below the Lion.

 The darkest green had arrived a while ago,

 and finally the blue-green arrived.

 Until it did, I did not want to start stitching

 until I could be sure it would work with the rest of the greens.

 As you can see, it does! So I got stitching right away!

 

Here you can see the Leo Cushion before starting the greens...

 but with the night sky completed. 

These kits are designed for larger scale, 

so the details are quite intricate for this tiny scale.

 I was not sure the two blue colors would be needed... 

but I have decided they work out okay....

 Just the darkest blue would have been

 too much like the black border squares.

 And once the ground is stitched... it makes beautiful contrast...

 

This is just the first two greens...

 

Here you can see the stitching beside the chart... 

it is sometimes difficult to tell which color the printed square is...

 they are very similar shades.

I start with the colors that are clearest to follow....

 the darkest and the lightest,

 and gradually fill in the more confusing ones.

 

Here I have added the golden wheat color....

 

And here the Leo Cushion stitching is finished!

 

 

And because I had also been waiting for

 that blue-green for the Wyvern Cushion... 

I got busy right away with the Green ground. 

This chart only needed the four green shades... 

no golden color is needed.

 

More of the Greens have been added...

 only the last one is still not stitched.

 

And of course, I have started the border for

 the last little Cushion for this piece of mesh....!

 

But I will Leave you here, Dear Readers... 

Wondering what the final cushion will be.... 

because I do have just a few more Leaves to grow

 on the Evergreen Rhododendron Shrub! 

Stitching Update...

 

Golden Threads... 

Some of the Threads I had ordered, Dear Readers, arrived promptly and I was lucky in that I could use two of the colors for my Astrological Lion cushion! You might recall that the design as it is charted in the Book calls for five thread colors for the Lion's body, a dark brown, a medium brown, a dark gold a medium gold and a pale gold, and I had only a pale gold and a bright gold and a dark-ish brown. I was hoping to find a lighter brown that was in the ocher range, and/or a darker gold in the butterscotch/ocher range. What I got was a darker brown.... which makes my first brown the medium one... and a wheat-gold that has to fall between the two golds I already had. 

 Here you can see the threads. I already had the palest gold on the left, the bright gold in the middle and the lighter brown beside that. As you can see, the colors are not as "different" from each other as I would have liked. Both the browns are fairly dark, and the golds are only subtly different from each other. But sometimes you just have to use what you have! So I got to work...

 

Here you can see the two different brown colors have been stitched... 

I know, they don't read as "different" here... it is really subtle!

 And I have started with the darker yellow, or gold, thread...

 

Here you can see the chart... 

the yellow thread I am stitching is the dark butterscotch color in the chart.

 It is quite challenging to discern exactly which color some of the squares are!

 

I have to pay very close attention to where I am in the chart....

 

Here I have completed the "butterscotch" stitches...

 

Next I am stitching the lightest gold color... 

because on the chart it stands out and is easy to place!

 

Here the lightest gold is almost all stitched.

 And at this point you can really see the "texture" 

of the coloring for the lion's mane,

 because the threads had good contrast.

 

Here the lightest gold has all been stitched. 

This is photographed in good morning light

 so you can pick up on the color differences.

But alas, Dear Readers, it is time to stitch

 the confusing mid-range gold... 

and suddenly all is not quite so clear...

 

Because it is so close in hue to the other golds... 

they begin to just blend together.

 

And here the mid-range gold is all stitched.

Some of that strong texture is gone...

 but I comfort myself with thinking that

 it actually looks pretty good for a Lion!

 

 The landscape stitching and the sky

 are still to come Dear Readers,

 but that will be a whole other adventure

 in new and Different Thread colors!

A Question of Color....

 

 Blue... Gold.... Green...

As You might be aware, Dear Readers, I have been wrestling a lot recently with Color choices for my many various stitching projects. This is in great part due to my tendency to change the designs that were the original kit specifications, but also due to the change of thread type being used due to the changed scale of the project. The threads specified for the Wyvern (and the future Lion) cushion, are all intended for DMC cotton pearl thread and the projects were scaled for RL products. When I noticed that the number of stitches for the Wyvern design was exactly the same as that for the Milles Fleures Kits I had been stitching, I assumed I could just use the same Milles Fleures kit silk threads for the Wyvern. And I could for the most part, but there were not enough colors in the Milles Fleures selection to match all the colors in the Wyvern design. So I set about ordering the missing thread colors... but this is very challenging when you don't have a chart to compare the colors across different manufacturers. And the availability of the silk threads here in the USA is hindered by the fact that they are imported so not all stores carry all or any of them. And trusting to the pictures of on-line ordering is also risky... they even don't recommend using the colors shown as a guide! You need to know the number of the color you want... which I have no clue about! So I have been ordering anyway... a kind of thread roulette... I assume I will eventually use the silk even if not right away on this project. For the Wyvern, I got lucky and could use two of the darker blues I ordered for the sky. You can see I have finished stitching that part in the above photo. I am still waiting for a blue-green thread, a purple thread, and could not use the only orange-ish color I ordered as it was too dark for the highlights on the Wyvern's scales. So meanwhile, I have started stitching the frame for the Lion cushion...

 

This is another of Candace Bahouth's designs.... 

one of a series of astrological-inspired motifs. 

And one of the things I love about these designs is that

 she actually designed them with glittery

 metallic gold thread for the stars and the Wyvern's fire! 

I didn't have to change that at all!

 

And yet again, I don't have enough colors of gold

 to complete the design as is....

 so I have ordered some more.

 We will see if they will work!

But the real color challenge I wanted to talk about was

 the still undecided background color for the

 Chinese Dragon Carpet golden border motif!

And I am not entirely to blame for this challenge, even though I did drastically change the kit design by adding the dragons as a central motif. The design had specified two colors of gold for the border that were so close to each other in hue that you could not tell there was a pattern at all! When I added the central motif I used the picture on the kit, showing a lovely gold band, as inspiration for the gold octagon surrounding the dragons. Only to discover once I started stitching that gold band that it was supposed to be a beautiful golden Greek key pattern,not a solid gold band. And in order to decide what color would work best for the background of that key pattern, I started stitching small "samples" along the side of the silk mesh.

I had shown sample of the options I tried so far... a paler gold background.... (bottom) the kit threads as specified (next above) the cream background (third from bottom) the dark blue (fourth up) and the navy blue (top option). And by then I had realized I really needed to include the dark blue outlines for this band in order to get the real effect. I had not intended to try the pale sky blue that is the background of sky with the dragons in the center.....(a piece of the design added by me) because I was pretty sure it would not work at all. But when a Dear Reader suggested I could try it, I thought that this would be a great example to use to show how some colors just do not play nicely with each other! Rather than just try to describe why... they are too similar to each other in intensity (or tone, both being mid-range) and too dissimilar in hue (they just cancel each other out!)..... I should show why by stitching a sample.... 

 

Can you even see the stitched sample above the navy blue one.....?

 It was extremely difficult to get it to show up in photos!

 

 

Here you can see I am adding the blue edges to all the samples...

 

Here is a closer view of the samples.... 

trying to get them in enough light... 

but I swear, the gold and the sky blue just swallow each other up! 

 

Here it is even closer... 

and you can see that the design and the background are too similar in intensity,

 neither one dominates, so they just cancel each other.

 And viewed from a distance, they combine to make a slightly green hue....!

So you can see my dilemma, Dear Readers,

 in needing to choose an alternate color than the kit specifies, 

without changing the original design color balance.... 

I am still undecided. So I am stitching the parts I do know first! 

 

Maybe by the time I am done with the outer borders, Dear Readers,

 I will have answered the question of which Color to use...

 

 

And More Stitching....

 

No End In Sight....!

I Have been stitching a Lot, Dear Readers, as I find it a soothing activity in these Troubled Times. In the above picture you can see the cushions I have been stitching, and the Unicorn cushion has had the dark red outlining completed. It really makes the image clear, and reveals the places where the design just might have a few problems... like around the beast's tail and the fence... but no matter, those cannot be corrected at this stage of the work! And you can also see the incomplete Wyvern cushion, waiting for new colors of silk threads to arrive... some are on back-order and have a long travel to get here. As you might imagine, it did not take me long to add the red background to the Unicorn cushion. But having made so many in this series, I was neglecting to take progress photos.

Here you can see the Unicorn cushion is nearly complete... only one corner still needing the bright red! Of course, I finished it and neglected to get a good finished photo... because I'm stitching a lot! And the next cushion design (those two spaces need to be cushions...!) was probably going to be another of Candace Bahouth's designs... but I hadn't decided which... and did I have the right threads? Still to be determined. Which left me with a couple of my other not-yet-finished stitching projects, either the Chinese Dragon carpet or the Medieval Cluny Merchant Tapestry.... neither of which had been worked on in months.

You might recall that I was trying to decide which color thread to use in the "golden" border of the Chinese Dragon Carpet in order for the lovely Greek Key pattern to show. The thread included in the kit was so similar in hue that the design was not apparent. I had done several test samples, without being able to decide which would suit the overall design the best... you can see them here along the edge...

And then I realized that in order to really see what they would look like, I had to include the dark blue outlines too. On the one with the navy blue ground it just tones the contrast down a bit, while on the one with the darker blue ground, it visually widens the band and makes the dark blue more powerful. This looks great in isolation... but would create a very strong dark rather than gold feeling to the border! Hmmmm.... still not clear! But the one thing that is clear... is that if I keep stitching the gold... I make progress!

 (Sorry the picture is dark... we are having a lot of dark rainy days again...)

 

Look at all that progress!

 It felt like I would never be done with that pattern... 

but the gold is done! 

And there is plenty of stitching to be done before

 I have to know the color for the background of this border.

But do you even remember the Cluny Merchant tapestry, Dear Readers?

(I will be calling him a Lord, not a Merchant...!) 

 

This is one of Janet Granger's kits for Medieval style Tapestry.

(She has retired and closed her shop)

But I was never happy with the costume for this fellow. 

It was way too Tudor Era and not Medieval enough for me. 

I had already stitched two of her tapestries, the Medieval Ladies,

 and had radically altered one of them. 

It was time to tackle this fellow's costume problems! 

 

Here you can see the original chart 

and what I had stitched already that I was not going to change. 

(After I had un-stitched what I could!) 

The position of the hand and the drape of the sleeve

 needed to be a little different.

 And his under-tunic would not be visible at the neck. 

The collar would be wide and closed.

 

The era I am using is more 1430 than 1500... 

The belt is very low on the waist and the tunic very pleated

 and the sleeves and hat are emphasized and outlandish...

 

I needed to actually chart the new design....

 

Gradually adding the details... coloring in the squares....

And beginning to stitch the changes... the new hand position....

 

 Adding the fur to the collar....

 

 And beginning the hat.... and needing to alter the colors somewhat!

The original greens provided for the kit were too similar in the darker tones...

 

 

 I swapped the mid range one for a more olive green... 

and the lighter one for a more apple green.

 

And started the sleeves...

 

 Adding more fur on the sleeves....

 

And adding the belt and purse and starting the tunic pleats....

 

And here you can see him placed next to the

 Medieval Ladies Tapestry I stitched a few years ago. 

I have been "assuming" from the start that these tapestries are all 

fragments of a much larger original tapestry.

 The Lord's section is taller than the Ladies one,

 but it will not matter because they will not be in the same room... 

you will never see them side by side. 

And in the Medieval era they did not change the size

 of the figures for proportional reasons, 

but more for the importance of the figure itself.

 

 

Here I have finished the fur at the hem of his tunic

 and am working slowly on the pleats.

There is still a long way to go,

 and eventually I will get his horse charted too... 

but first I have to decide the colors for him...

 

Meanwhile, some of the threads I ordered for the Wyvern arrived...

Here I am adding the dark blue to the sky.

The charts for this are not easy to read... 

some of the printed colors are very similar in hue and hard to tell apart.

 Also the colors on the chart are not all close to the real stitched colors. 

When in doubt, I have been relying on the photo of the finished project in the book...

 and that one shows the sky as dark.

 

Here you can see I have begun to add the mid-range blue to the sky...

and I also stitched much of the bright coral color of the body.

The "fire" he is breathing is gold metallic thread. 

It was very challenging to stitch but it makes a great impact!

Oh, and you can see the completed Unicorn too!

 

So you can see, Dear Readers, 

I have been stitching a Lot...

And there is Still no end in Sight!