Stitching Up a Storm in Alamo City

One more picture

I'm sooooo close.   She is 98% finished, except for gloves.   I decided this morning, I'm going to run up to Austin - maybe NEXT week - and get some coaching before I start attaching them.   I got some leather shoe strings for the lasso and just attached them to the top of the canvas and now the gloves have to go over the lasso - it's kind of lumpy.  I'm tempted to pad them a little bit, but decided I'd just run up there before I start experimenting. 

Mark is playing golf today - so I have the whole day I can stitch if I want to.  Now I just have to figure out which of my many unfinished projects I want to pull out.

We've been having beautiful weather in San Antonio.   Yesterday it was a bit windy, but otherwise, it's been lovely - a bit warmer than it should be this time of year.  I should be out pulling weeds and doing a little bit of planting, but I think I'll stitch instead!!

Happy stitching!
Jane

 

Slowly but surely...

I'm plodding along with this cowgirl.  Actually I haven't stitched much this past week.  I had a lot of museum things going on - so once I took my stitching out of the family room to make room for a couple of people who came over to watch the Super Bowl, I didn't get back to it until today.

Before I put it away, though, I got some courage regarding the gloves.  I cut out her left glove and have been staring at it to see if I think I like it.  Tony gave me some white ultrasuede to use for the fringe, and I'm thinking I'm going to cut the fringe-y part out of the yellow-ish ultrasuede and see what that looks like before I start stitching it on.   I think the white might be too white!!

I've also been thinking about using a marker on the gloves to dirty them up a bit.  Tony showed me that trick a couple of classes ago.   We'll see.

Hope your stitching is more productive than mine these days.
Happy stitching,
Jane

 

Still working on the cowgirl

Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure how much I've actually accomplished on the cowgirl since I told you about her last - but I know for sure I got the main part of one boot done, and maybe a little bit of background. 

All I need is a few afternoons of quiet to get her finished and off the stretcher bars, which is my second most favorite part of stitching.   My favorite thing about stitching is getting a new piece with all the beautiful accompanying threads!!!   I guess that would explain my stash that seems to be procreating when I'm not looking.   But I also love the thrill of taking a finished piece off the bars - almost more than getting it back from the finisher. 

Life is busy these days.  I'm co-chairing the annual docent party on Feb 8th for the museum - The McNay Art Museum. Mark and I went last night to the opening of a fabulous Andy Warhol exhibit - it's 150 works from the Warhol museum in Pittsburgh.   I'll have to admit I didn't know much about his work, except the Marilyn portraits and the Campbell's soup paintings.   Our exhibit is so fascinating, and Andy Warhol was brilliant.   Weird, but brilliant.   All that to say, the docent party will have a Warhol/Studio 54 theme - yesterday we came up with the idea to have a guy cross dress as Marilyn for the party.  We ended up getting a woman to do it.... not quite as pithy (for my docent buddies whose average age is about 70) but still fun.  Promise to post pictures.

Happy stitching.
Jane

 

More cowbell, I mean cowgirl

My friend and stitching buddy, Jackie and I got together for an inpromptu stitching weekend.  Mark was out of town - she and I had talked about it but thought we couldn't make it happen - and then it DID!!  So she came into town on Saturday afternoon and we had a stitching and TV watching marathon until Sunday night.  When we actually stitching, I worked on the cowgirl.

Her blouse is finished now, except I need to go back with some buttons and maybe outline stitch a little bit to delineate her sleeve and bodice.   But I like it.   I couldn't find the beads that Tony specified to put inside the strap stitch on the blouse, so I came up with some silver beads I had here at the house - had 75% of them in and then decided they were too big.  So I found these little clear beads and used the matching silk for the area to attach them.  So I think I'm happy with the blouse.

In addition to finishing the blouse, I outlined or stemmed the hat and the pants.

So now I'm starting to build anxiety over these dang gloves.   They're supposed to be appliqued ultrasuede, which will be beautiful, if done correctly.  Scary thought.

Happy stitching,
Jane

 

Cowgirl is front and center

I got an amazing amount of stitching done right before the holidays - I've got 75% of the "first layer" done on this piece. 

For some reason, the middle sunflower on the right only had a center, so I had to kind of fake the petals.   I'm not sure if that was a mistake or if I just didn't "read" the canvas correctly.

Sorry, Tony, but I switched the thread for her pants.   Instead of using black black - a Splendor - I used an overdye - Weeks Dye Works Ebony, which I like.   The jeans have some couched details over the top, which I'll do when I start the 2nd layer of stitching. 

So here's a question:   Do you stitch all the layers of an area before you move on, or do you stitch the entire canvas, one layer at a time?   Or do you dream about doing a piece in basketweave only?  

Some days I dream of basketweave!!

Happy New Year and Happy Stitching.
Jane