Melitastitches4fun's Blog

A few of my ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter members are stitching this Alice Peterson canvas, Winter Scene Sleigh. We’re using the painted canvas as a learning experience as we’ve been doing with other painted canvas. We discuss the differences between two stitch guides. I’m selecting my own stitches and threads.

Not wanting to make the green shadow near the sleigh more prominent, I used Water N’ Ice WT1, a translucent, loosely braided, flat ribbon which allowed less of the green shows through. Since the reflective surface shows better with long stitches, I selected an alternating slanted gobelin over 4. Good thing I had multiple cards of Water N’ Ice because I’m going through it like water. It frays like crazy. I pulled out my Thread Zap II to seal the ends with moderate improvement. Now that I’m done, I found a tip from Julia Snyder on Facebook, “If you will thread the loop through your needle and make the loop large enough to slide over the point of the needle, then pull the longer tail. This will put a slip knot on the eye of the needle and it makes it so much easier to work with.”

The packages were fun and a bit challenging.

• The beige present is a woven stitch with Flair F503 and the green bow has DMC #8 Perle tent and reverse tent covered by Neon Rays+ NP135 (longer stitches for the bow).
• The green present is an overlaid cross with Bella Lussa 630 (from Sandra Arthur’s Series I, Rectangle 4×8 adjusted to size). It has a white strip which is a horizontal spring stitch using Snow 09 Silver (from Sandra Arthur’s Series I, Rectangle 2×6 adjusted to size). And, the bow is a tied piece of Flair F593 tacked down with 1 ply of Splendor S891.
• The blue present is a diagonal weave couching with Impressions 7072 (from Sandra Arthur’s Series I, Rectangle 7×2 adjusted to size). The bow is a combination of tent and lazy daisy using Kreinik #16 Braid 060.
• The red present is a square scotch with tent, and gobelin edges using Elegance E820, Kreinik #8 Braid 061, and Bella Lusso 764, respectively. And, reverse scotch uses 1 strand of Bijoux 429 Jasper. The stitch pattern comes from Sandra Arthur’s Series I, Square 8×8 adjusted to size. The bow is tent stitch covered twice (a few longer stitches) using Fyre Werks F34.

The packages sit in a gray sleigh consisting of Vineyard Dilk Shimmer 536 and 535 using the Herringbone Ground I from Julia Snyder’s Keys to Canvas Embellishment. It creates a beveled effect that I like for body of the sleigh. The metal runners are a single long thread of Kreinik 1/16″ ribbon 005HL with a running stitch along the center to hold it in place. The ribbon spread out nicely to cover 2 canvas threads.

It’s all much more sparkly than the picture shows.

A few of my ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter members are stitching this Alice Peterson canvas, Winter Scene Sleigh. We’re using the painted canvas as a learning experience as we’ve been doing with other painted canvas. We discuss the differences between two stitch guides.

We all agreed that a non-directional stitch for the sky would be good. So, I went with Parisian. Even though the stitches are placed vertically on the canvas, it is non directional because of staggered placement. A couple of others are going to use alternating continental with 2 threads which will allow some canvas to show through.

The trees are stitched with Trio (T02-white) in Double Stitch which was a stitch recommended for tree trunks in Stitches For Effect by Suzanne Howren and Beth Robertson.

For the sky, I used Caron Waterlilies 74 Storm Clouds which is an overdyed thread with blue-green/grey portions. And, I used the greener area in the center and then reversed the direction of the threads in the outer areas to get a little more blue. Using 2 plies allowed the color of the canvas to show through a little. It’s subtle but I can see the difference.

I’ll have fun going through my stash looking for threads for the packages.