Monday, August 9, 2010

"High summer"...Background Stitching Complete

"This is going to be a big project: smaller scale, but lots of stitches."
So said my friend Barbara Curiel in her comment on her last post, and wow was she right.

I haven't had too much time for concentrated work on this, but even so, from looking at the back you can see how much stitching there is and how fine the thread is. It's kind of funny to be working at such a small scale that one strand of embroidery floss seems thick!

The colors are subtle and this will be the kind of piece where if you don't look attentively, you will miss what's happening. But that's fun too....

Do click on it.
I think it is usually a good idea to work from background through the midground to the foreground in these embroidered landscape/house portraits. The background is now done, except for a few tweaks later on.
For the midground I ordered some new threads from Evening Star Designs.

These are overdyed perle #12 cotton--with one rayon thrown in. This will seem huge to work with!
The flowers in the foreground of course will have the thickest threads. But I don't get to play with those quite yet....

10 comments :

Rian said...

It would be tempting to want to brighten up some of the colors, but then you would lose the softness of the mood. I think it is a fine line between the two. Nice capture!

allie aller said...

You raise an important point, Rian.
This kind of work requires faith, believe me. And my faith is that the subdued background will make the flowers go poppity pop (no pun intended--a lot of them are poppies) because those colors will be vivid.
Also, the surrounding border is going to be soft Mickey Lawler hand-dyed sunrise colors (lavendar, muted orange) with some bright 3-D poppies along the bottom....so I am having to keep the background muted as a foil for what is coming.
But yes indeed it was sorely tempting to brighten it up!!!

Jacqueline Davis said...

This looks very cool Allie!

shirley said...

Cant wait for the different stages to see the picture emerge. I like the way you have captured the soft light and shade which will give depth as you come closer to the foreground
This is an exciting project.

FredaB said...

Allie could you use the punchneedle on some of the bushes. Might be faster. Just an idea. Again another great one to watch.

Hugs

FredaB

Suztats said...

I am enjoying watching this project come to life. Thank you.

Rachel said...

I did click on the picture to enlarge it, and it's looking really good, subtle and delicate.

Barbara C said...

The tree looks especially nice. It's amazing how many stitches it takes when you're working with such fine threads, but the effect is very realistic.

Judy S. said...

Amazing, Allie! I love to watch your work progress. You must be very disciplined to not skip to the fun part! Are you having the same heat we are?

shirley bligh said...

Watching this grow has been wonderful This is going to be another piece of work to be proud of.