A Tiny Pumpkin

With Christmas on Wedneasday I spent all day Thursday thinking it was Monday and so I have been behind since then, This week’s pumpkin is the smallest of all the olive pumpkin at the top right. If you look at the canvas youll see there are two olive pumpkins. Because of this, I decided to make this pumpkin a little bit brighter.

With small areas like this one, the damask patterns are limited. You can do stripes, as we did last week. Small patterns tht are one or two lines or threads wide also work. This pattern, Berlioz, below, is a good example. With areas that differ in width, the result is a dense texture that isn’t as regular as a check.

I used Planet Earth 6-strand for the lighter olive and Petite Frosty Rays for the darker. With these two threads you have contrasts in both texture and color. That gives us two contrasts for needlepoint damask, something stronger than the other two pumpkins. This works well in this small area where it needs to hold its own among the larger pumpkins. The stronger contrasts also work well when damask is used for a textured area in the piece. Be more cautious about using this for large areas that are not focal points or for backgrounds. Strong, or multuiple, contrast can ruin the balance of a piece, putting emphasis where you do not want it to be.

Frosty Rays, both regular and Petite can be an excellent choice for damasks when you want a metallic feel but one that is not too shiny. The metalllic in this thread adds a second color or shade and adds a bit of metallic shine to the interesting textre of Flair.