Owl Side One - completed

Hope you had a great weekend and enjoyed some serious stitching time. Saturday was my "stitching with my peeps" day; enjoyed a wonderful breakfast and morning of stitching with 9 of my local stitchy friends. I made progress on my owl, enjoyed seeing what everyone else was working on and just enjoyed being with my friends for the first time in a long time.

After taking in the advice of readers about the owl I changed things up a bit. On the upper outside edges of the owl's body, I continued stitching with 2 strands of Burmilana. As I moved further down the sides I began using only 1 strand of Burmilana. The result is a lighter, more feathery look to the stitches. You can see the difference of 2 vs 1 strand in the photo on the left.  I was happy with the look and decided there was no need to rip out the 2 strand stitches. I also followed more advice and decided to just alternate thread colors rather than strictly follow the painted canvas. It made much more sense to me to stitch this particular canvas this way.  

Next up, the wing which was fun to stitch. First, it is the last section of side one of the owl, so naturally I was delighted to get started on it. A couching pattern is used. Laying a strand of Kreinik #12 braid for the foundation you must completely couch one foundation row before laying the second .

Four shades of Burmilana are used on the wing; row one uses color one and couch pattern one all across the row. Row two uses color two and couch pattern two across the row, and so on with row three and four; continue repeating rows one through four until you reach the end. The photograph does not do the stitching justice; the flow between body and wing are more subtle in person than in the picture. You can see she the shiny braid peeking through the stitches. I think the wing colors and pattern contrast nicely between wing and body. I like it. I have a little clean up to do before moving on to finishing side two. It's great to take photos of your work when looking for imperfections, missed stitches etc. as, like it or not, the camera makes every flaw stand out.

I'll be working on the second side next; I've already stitched the back of the head and will proceed with the body and wing of side two. Then I'll need to decide where the actual feathers will be placed. Yes, there are real feathers included in the kit. The instructions suggest using them as tail feathers, but there are enough included that I might be able to overlay them somewhere on the bird besides the tail. We'll discuss that next time. Meanwhile thank you very much for visiting today, will see you soon.

My nocturnal bird of prey is moving right along!

Hi all! It's snowing and we're predicted to get enough to keep me inside for a few days stitching; a situation only possibly enhanced if some of you were here too! Pinch me! Thankfully I have all the important food groups covered (coffee, cream, butter, bread, chicken soup..);  my dear kitty Teddy nearby; broom and gloves positioned near the front door to clear off the satellite dish...seems as though all the planets are aligned.... Happy dance!   

Late last night (apparently I'm taking on the habits of my subject here) I finished stitching the back of the owl head using the Inverted Small Diamond Ray stitch; a great choice for feathers especially when you're trying to achieve a sense of order with how the "feathers" lay? lie?. Let me just interject something that I believe I've expressed somewhere on this blog in the past, about how I seem to fall into the same quandary when stitching a painted canvas.  The back of the owl head is a perfect example of the feather ruffling impasse I typically reach when trying to bring the painted canvas and stitch choice into harmony.

This canvas has been painted with near perfect uniformity when looking at the color placement for the feathers; this is wonderful if I were doing tent stitch, but in this project I am not because I want the chosen stitch to create the illusion of feathers. The suggested stitches and the painted canvas are perfect here....just not for each other. I'm not questioning the stitch guide at all; I'm merely saying that I don't know how to implement the two together.

The challenge for me is to reconcile color placement with stitch placement and I always seem to struggle when determining which takes priority. Unfortunately this slows down my pace, I end up ripping out and ultimately getting a little frustrated. Understand that while I'm addressing this project specifically, I often come across this conflict with most painted canvases I stitch. Maybe you can see what I'm trying to explain in the photo on the left as you view the stitched part of the body (using Offset Ray) versus the unstitched portion directly below. The wing will be stitched in a totally different way.

I am not trying to achieve perfection at all and yes stitching is about enjoyment, but I do wish there was some type of a "rule" or method from which to consider the various options? If only to move me a long a little faster. Believe me it's crossed my mind to ignore the colors painted on the canvas, and then using the feather stitch, alternate the 3 or 4 thread colors as I go along. Am I taking the stitch/color connection too literally? I don't know but I am hoping there may be a word to the wise (owl) out there from stitchers that may throw a (wing) tip my way.  I am all ears.

Great stitchy week!

Off and on all week I've entertained myself by reading your blogs, surfing stitchy websites and wandering in and out of my stash closet seeking inspiration for just the right project. It was wonderful catching up on everyone stitching and reading about the holidays, etc.; blogville kept moving ahead despite my dormancy, thank heavens. 

I created lists of new starts and UFO's from which to choose my next project and actually spent several joy-filled hours putting together thread kits for various projects including a new chart I purchased pre-hiatus, Laura Perin's One Long Panel. All of Laura's suggested colorways are lovely making it difficult to chose just one. I put two options together out of my stash and now I'm ready to get started whenever the mood strikes! I noticed Spinster Stitcher is working on this design and making great progress too.  Just in case, Laura sells her charts on her website if you can't readily find them locally.

Next I turned to ogling my painted canvases. Realizing most of them didn't come with a stitch guide, I gathered up my 5 volumes of Amy's Cookbooks of Stitches and settled in for some serious reading. These are great books and I learned so much; I am always stunned to find out just how much I don't know about my favorite pastime!

After many hours I realized the best thing for me was to just start stitching....on anything.  Stop the hemming and hawing nonsense and get on with it. So I chose a painted canvas given to me in September, "Labors of Love" Owl. The canvas came with a stitch guide written by the amazing Tony Minieri. Would you believe in all the years I've been around I've never had the pleasure of possessing a TM guide. He's famous for them.

So far my feathered friend has Kreinik braid for his eyes in tent stitch with a Splendor outline. His face uses 3 strands of Amy's Burmilana in the Double Brick stitch and is very effective for this birdie. Check out his beak, TM suggested Oblong Plaited Diamond stitch, which has 36 passes in all. Great beak! Owly is just one of several birds represented and all include real tail feathers!

Well thanks to all of your encouragement I'm on my way and very pleased to be starting out the new year with such a fun canvas. Thank you very much for sticking with me. See you very soon.