Paddy, plantings, and counted cross stitch I have done in the past

Hi to anyone still reading this. The last few weeks of summer got a bit crazy, what with being chosen for a jury, getting a ninth and eleventh grader ready to return to school, an earthquake and two hurricanes (well, technically, only Irene was a hurricane, Lee was just an amazing amount of water with not much wind to speak of by the time it reached us. Caused major flooding in the area, so the kids got two more days off school, in addition to the one they missed due to Irene.

But I am back to stitching, hooray! Spent yesterday afternoon at my Tangle group (anyone in the DC area interested in attending, just let me know), and we were doing salt silk dying. Here are some pictures of the scarf I did.

I love how the fabric looks very watery. Basically, you wet the fabric down, the spray with the colors of dye you want, then spray with water and sprinkle salt over it. I used kosher salt, which gives little tiny pools where the dye gets pulled up by the salt--each of the "bubbles" is around a salt crystal.

And here is Paddy, a couple weeks ago and yesterday--haven't had much "me-time" to stitch on him lately, but now the kids are back in school, hopefully I'll have more time to work on him.

Paddy's right leg, padded and started

Right leg mostly finished.

I had some cotton floche in a bright red which I used as padding, and just couched it down, then I started doing the long and short to cover it. Once I finish that, I'll do the metallic over his tail and then his hind legs.

My tropical trees have done well this summer. I am particularly amazed at the plumeria, she went leaf crazy.

Plumeria

Granny Weatherwax, the avocado tree

Lemon tree. I have two cats who like the taste of lemon. I always thought cats hated the taste of citrus

Castanospermum, an Australian tree

Hopefully, this fall will mark the last time I have to bring all these guys into the house for the winter, as we plan to build a greenhouse for my tropical gardening obsession. I am hoping we can make it large enough that I can set aside a stitching corner and turn it into a conservatory sort of space. It is the one room in stately English homes I really, truly envied.

Here are some of my other embroidery endeavors, in counted cross stitch. I have a couple of large counted projects I am working on, including a wedding sampler chinese style from Pinn stitch (no, I don't have a picture of it in progress... yet...) and a frog by Jo Lynch from the Heaven and Earth website. These are all finished projects, including the framing and hanging...

Teresa Wentzler's The Castle, finished as a hanging banner

 Curtis Boehringer's Queen Anne's Lace, from a series of which I only did this one because my Mum-in-law loves this flower. I was given it back after she passed away.

Anne Orr's pansy banner, inserted into a Sudberry box, also given to Mum-in-law, as she also adored pansies. I did this one ages ago, and she did not give color numbers, you just matched up the floss colors to match her colored in graphs. I used the closest matches I could find, and was quite sure I was getting the colors horribly wrong, but Mum-in-law had pansies in all these color sets.

I also put in an order for a new counted canvas project called Amazing Colors, which I purchased with the money I got for being on a jury. I ordered it from 123 Stitch, and Nancy there was so very nice about putting together all the supplies--except for the Threadworx which she does not carry.  I believe they are carried by Bedecked and Bedazzled, which gives me an excuse to go there--although it is dangerous territory for those of us known for our ability to get high on color.

THE Magpie

Paddy yet again

I've been working on Padparadscha, although I did take a week off to help the daughter to look for her dragon. Little idiot decided to take Calypso outside... and Calypso decided to make a break for it. We are now going to hope she survives until it starts getting cooler out, then we'll try to recapture her before it gets too cold and kills her. Keep both daughter and dragon in your good thoughts/prayers/whatevers as the one won't survive the winter, and the other would grieve terribly if she doesn't.

Anyway, I have started doing the metallic thread in fly stitch, and I think it looks glorious! Thank you ever so much Rachel for the suggestion. I also did the nostril with a four ply french knot in the two lighter silks, with a small stitch in the center of the metallic, to darken the middle, if you see what I mean. The eye is done with a size 11 seed bead, and I did a small stitch of the metallic thread over the center of the bead, sort of like a pupil.

As you can see in the picture, I added the bottom wing as well. I used the metallic to add the wing struts--what are those called when it isn't an airplane? I still have the tail portion to do with the metallic, but so far it looks lovely. I plan to add a trellis stitch over the pearl in the metallic thread. After that, I really need to get the legs in so I can do some of the vegetation he is standing in.

Okay, here are a couple of pictures that will make you go, "Awwwwww!"

Detente kitties.

    

Calypso napping in her food dish--with lunch.

THE Magpie

Dragon noses

So I have been thinking about it, and I think I am going to do the nostril with a colonial/french knot. I am going to use either perle weight or something like it. I studied horse and cow noses, and also peered at Calypso, and I think I want to do something more like the horse. Or not. We'll see how it looks.

THE Magpie

Busy. But managed to carve some time for Padparadscha

Well, I got a bit more done on Padparadscha. I am starting to feel a bit more confident about my abilities as an embroidress, even to contemplating actually doing one of the Helen Stevens bird pictures, as opposed to just drooling over the photos in her books. I have an assortment of the flat silks, the ones used in the Chinese embroideries that so often crop up in the restaurants, mostly because they are drop dead gorgeous, plus the colors are to die for--or dye for, as the case may be.

Anyway, here is Paddy as far as I have gotten.

I am not sure how I am going to do his nostril, but his eye is going to be a bead--maybe one of my glow in the dark beads--we'll see. I think I am going to finish the mid color overlay, and then do the metallic fly stitch. His legs are going to be silk most of the way down, and the toes and claws I am planning to do in the metallic braid. Here is a close up of the stitching and overlay.

Once I stitch in the legs and finish the body, I plan to add the left wing, which will be tacked down to the ground fabric. After I finish that and before I do the feet, I plan to start the background. I have some fluffy and fancy yarns to use for grass and bushes.

Okay, I have to post some pictures of the other dragon in my life. She is a cutie pie, and sleeps in the most silly positions.

In this picture, she was asleep, but we woke her when we took the picture.

We measured her, and she is about seven inches long from nose to tail tip.

THE Magpie

Dragons, two this time

 First, here is a picture of Calypso, my daughter's bearded dragon. Okay, actually, here are several pictures of Calypso. Isn't she cute???

We don't know as yet if she is male or female, because it is hard to tell when they are young. However, we are assuming that it is a she for the time being.

Meanwhile, I have started on the body and tail of Padparadscha. I am using the dark rust silk to put the first layer of stitching in, which will follow with the other two colors of silk and end with the metallic braid in fly stitch.

If anyone reading this knows what the stitch is called, please do let me know. I use it as a filling that is more versatile than satin stitch, as you can follow contours, and usually I fill in very tightly but because I plan to layer three colors I am leaving spaces to fill later. I was assuming it was either long and short or split stitch, but it isn't split as I don't go through any of the stitches, but rather between them. Probably long and short, but all the illustrations I have seen of that are much more even than what I am doing.


THE Magpie

Dragon, take 42--no wait, that's the meaning of life, the universe...

First, Rachel and RogerBW, thank you for your kind comments. Also for your excellent suggestions. I think I am going to take part of one of Rachel's for the scales, I am going to do layered split stitch (I think that is the one) where you do straight stitches very close together--it isn't satin stitch, which I had pondered but rejected as too smooth, and I learned it doing a very pretty Rowandean kit of a black cat--I really liked how you can curve the stitches around and do very pretty contouring. I am going to use the three colors of silk, layering them from dark to light, and the rust/brown/orange metallic ribbon, which will go on last in fly stitch. I really liked that idea for showing the scales.

Here is the dragon's pearl, as far as I have stitched it. I plan to use some of the metallic and the overdyed silk to do a couched trellis over it.

 I did a padded satin stitch over felt padding. Here is a picture of the partial first layer of satin stitching showing the felt padding underneath.

 I finished the wings finally. I didn't use wire for the second wing, as I am going to tack it down to the ground fabric rather than have it sticking out. I wanted both wings to look the same however, so I backstitched around the wing shape and then whip stitched the same as I did for the wired wing.

 This is the wired wing, with the whip stitch done. I still want to add some veining to the wing, probably with the aforementioned metallic.

Here are both wings with the whip stitch finished. The sparkliness of the base fabrics really shows in the picture.

 I decided to backstitch around the body of the dragon so that I would have an idea of where I was going, and partly to fill time while I noodled around with what I was going to do next.

And finally, here is is with his body backstitched in. I think he is a happy dragon. Maybe someone is going to play ball with him...

In other news, my daughter finally wheedled me into driving her to the local pet shop so that she could acquire her own dragon, of the Australian bearded variety. Her name is Calypso, and I'm pretty sure that pictures of her will probably show up here from time to time. She has settled into her new home very happily, and loves to chase down and eat crickets and mealworms. Not that she has to chase the worms as they just squirm in her food bowl.

THE Magpie.

Dragon my feet

On the dragon's feet. I figured out what I wanted to do for the pearl Padparadscha is holding, and it is finished, and I backstitched around his body while noodling about how to fill it in. I think I am going to use orange sequins held down with some really pretty orange seed beads. I am going to do a bit on a doodle cloth before I start on the actual piece. I debated doing his body in a sort of or nue variation, but couldn't figure out how to get a scaly effect. I have pictures of him as of this evening, but as I have yet to load them onto the computer they will be uploaded to the blog later.

Oh, and about the feet. I haven't yet decided whether to do them in the woven petals thing from stumpwork--they are often used for sepals on raspberries, and I just picked up an old British stitchery mag. that has a sunflower with them as petals--very pretty. Either that or I am going to do them in bullion knots. I am leaning toward the petals as I think they will look very dragonish.

THE Magpie