Kristen, one of my fellow cruisers who knew we’d purchased 4 bottles of Blanton’s, discovered that Rittenhouse Needlepoint sold the Blanton’s Bottle canvas and reminded me while we were on a shopping trip for threads in November 2019. I ordered it, it arrived in December as a Christmas gift to myself last year and it is appropriate that I finish it at Christmas time this year! Recently, we found a bottle of Blanton’s allowing us to save the last bottle from our May 2019 cruise.
I love the mesh bag that comes on the bottle and that influenced my decision on the background to select Chicken Wire from More Backgrounds for Needlepoint by June McNight. Her other book, Decorative Backgrounds for Needlepoint listed the 10 Commandments and the second one surprised me. A dark background brings the main design forward while a light background may melt into it. I held up a dark brown Floche and a light brown Floche next to the bottle and could see immediately that the darker one was better.
Initially, I tried 11/0 Mill Hill seed beads for the rider, horse, and rim but they were too big for basketweave and backstitching (stringing beads in a straight line) on 18 count canvas. So, I reached out to my chapter member Linda and found out that her resources and experience indicated that smaller 15/0 seed beads were better for basketweave.
As it happened, Michael’s only had Miyuki 11/0 in Delica black beads which are more tubular than the round seed beads. So, I bought them because I still wanted the black beads to be bigger than the rider and horse to mimic the actual bottle. And, I thought they would backstitch really well on the black rim which are completely straight rows.
You can see the difference in size and shape between 11/0 seed beads and 11/0 Delica beads in this photo. Four seed beads cover 1/4 inch and five Delica beads cover the same length.
The 11/0 Delica seed beads allowed me to contrast in size and basketweave with the smaller Miyuki 15/0 seed beads in a light bronze for the horse and rider.
Here’s the sizes of 3 different round seed beads 15/0 Miyuki (6 left), 14/0 Sundance (6 center), and 14/15 Sundance (6 right).
It’s not until you use more beads will you start to see a slight difference between the 15/0 (12 left) and 14/0 (12 right). So, when you have a larger area of basketweave, you’ll probably find 15/0 preferable.
No doubt that we will be ringing in the New Year with a wee bit of Blanton’s and toasting to my last finished piece of the year. Happy New Year everyone!
Well, I had been stitching this during our ANG Saturday Stitch-in days until we got hit with the coronavirus. And, it got put away and forgotten until I went looking for something else.
So, I decided to finish the glass bottle. I love how the two strands of Bijoux MMT482 Tigar Eye in the Woven stitch look like bourbon sitting in a glass bottle. I can taste it!
There was a nice turn out for today’s Main Line Stitch-in with a surprise Show ‘n Tell from 3 members. I’m gathering photos of pieces to send to the graphic artist who will create our advertising postcard featuring a couple of pieces for our month-long exhibit at the Media Arts Council Gallery which will be starting July 11. It’s open to the public.
Today, I continued with the Woven stitch using 2 strands of Bijoux Tiger Eye MMT482 on the Blanton’s canvas. The open stitch and thin thread allows the colors of the canvas to show through. Since I really didn’t understand the white areas, I am happy that they are much less apparent. Next month, Saturday March 28, I should finish the glass bottle.
Please join us any fourth Saturday of the month from 11 am – 3 pm at Starbucks in Wayne, PA (218 Lancaster Ave).
Despite heavy rain several ANG Main Line Stitchers showed up for today’s Stitch-in. I had gotten several good suggestions for open stitches at my chapter meeting. Jane at Chilly Hollow had left a comment also suggesting a thin metallic in an open stitch.
So, I went with Woven using 2 strands of Bijoux Tiger Eye MMT482. This Bijoux has some gold and some reddish areas throughout the thread (that isn’t coming through in the photo). I’m using 2 strands and the colors don’t always line up. It’s really turning out well. Looks justs like a deep bourbon colored liquid in a glass bottle.
Melitastitches4fun's Blog 
Filed under: ANG Cyberworshop, ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, ANG Seminar 2020, Blanton's Bottle, Build Your Own Geometric-Kurdy Biggs, General comments, Interchange by Linda Reinmiller, Needle Me Canvas Contest
Many thanks to Meghan and Rebecca at Michael’s framing department in Pottstown. Meghan did a great job helping my husband and I select the mats and frames. They have a very clever device that displays an image on the computer of your piece in the mat and frame to see how it will look before finalizing. I really liked the shape of the mat for the diamond shape piece. I’m very happy with final pieces.