WIP: Red Kimono

Next month, our ANG chapter is hosting Sharon G for a two-day canvas embellishment class. In this type of class, every class participant brings out a hand-painted needlepoint canvas, and the teacher helps the student evaluate the canvas to figure out what stitches and threads to use.

We had a similar class with Brenda Hart in August of 2005. The canvas I brought to that class was a red kimono by Sophia Designs. The unstitched canvas is shown here (thanks to Needlenook of La Jolla's website for the image). I thought I should try to finish this piece before starting a new one with Sharon G!

I've been working on this canvas on and off since the class, trying to figure out what stitches should go in those areas not suggested by Brenda. In one case (the leaves), I tried her multiple suggestions and eliminated them one by one. Thursday night I decided that since I had so little basketweave in this piece, I should use it for the leaves. In her book Needlepoint 101, when talking about painted canvas, Ruth Dilts expresses the opinion that "Every Piece Must Have Some Basketweave or Continental Stitch In It." I don't know if I'll always find this true, but this piece needed some restful areas because there are so many other textured stitches in it.

I started the basketweave on the leaves last night. For the leaves inside the navy areas, I'm using a new Rainbow Gallery thread called Panache. It's a round rayon thread a bit smaller than Patina. The rayon gives a slightly different sheen than the surrounding silk. I'm shading the green leaves with 3 shades of Splendor and one of Soie d'Alger. I've still got a bit to go to finish all the leaves.

The entire canvas stitched so far is shown below. There are lots of small areas that still need to be stitched. I'm saving all the gold swirls and tassels until last, and in some cases, I'm stitching over the gold swirls. I'll be couching Japan gold thread over all the gold lines, and it's easier to couch over already stitched areas than to try to compensate around the couching.