Very comfortable stitching day! No tissue paper – all counted work.
I did not need to practice the trees because I just did the same technique for Gail Stafford’s, A Dusting of Snow. Kay adds a twist, figuratively and literally, with regards to the couched thread. And, the stitch for the leaves is one I understand.
So, I stitched the composite blue/green border you see on the left side. It’s a 6-step process and 5 steps are done. The 6th step for the beads will go on last.
At the end of class, Kay had us turn our glass ort container into a glass, filled with champagne, and we toasted our wonderful experience together! Many thanks to the pilot stitchers who donated the ort containers for our class and got Tiffany paper bags to decorate our classroom. Very nice touches.
Well, after a lovely evening last night at the Needlepoint Fiesta dinner, I didn’t want to stitch. But, I did read the instructions and really like the “Technique” sheets that Kay Stanis includes with the instructions for A Toast to Tiffany. They cover “Framing Up Canvas on Stretcher Bars” (well written so I could do this again if desired), “Beginning and Ending Stitchable Threads on Canvas” (learned an interesting French Method Adaptation and about a U stitch which seems better than L stitch), “Beginning and Ending Non-stitchable Threads” (all new for me having not done much goldwork), “Design Transfer” (very understandable and doable but tedious), “Diagonal Holding/Blending” (a very cool technique), and “Braids” (new, for me, info about beginning, ending, and couching braids).
We spent this morning doing the crescents of which I got 4 done. Kay suggested that instead of all S crescents on left and we alternate crescent directions and I like the pattern she shows as Z-S-Z-Z-S-Z (from top to bottom).
I spent about 35 minutes of lunch basting on top of tissue paper the bottom motifs. The tissue paper didn’t bother me as much maybe because I really had it solidly in place using several needles. Then, I used the afternoon to pad and satin stitch the petals followed by couching the gold around the petals.
We also discussed how to place the sequins on the borders but I don’t have the borders all basted and will put them on last anyway. The day was over fast. Tomorrow is the stitch for the trees and probably the borders.
The only pre-work required was to make a bead-cutting tray to keep the purls and beads under control.
My classmate, Linda, made mine! It’s a piece of foam core about 6” x 6” with a piece of felt and a matching cord! Lovely. Thanks again Linda!!
The instructions say we are getting a 13˝ X 16˝ congress cloth but that we should bring 14˝ X 16˝ bars. I asked about that thinking there was an error. But, no, we are lacing (2 sides with regular bars or 1 side with Evertites)! Nice to learn how to lace but prefer Evertites.
Also, nice to learn about transferring a design using tissue paper but prefer line drawings! Basting through the tissue paper is tedious and I didn’t get much done. Maybe homework tonight if I have the energy and eyes for it. But, I’d also like to find a different sky thread(s) and am not happy with my laying of the sky so far. We are thread blending 3 overdyed threads. I didn’t want streaks. So, I left areas to go back with a different thread. I may have to start all over at home.
The water went very well as did the tacking of the felt. My tacking stitch got cut accidentally when I was removing the tissue paper. Not a fan of the tissue paper!
Looking forward to the counted work we’ll be doing tomorrow!
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