This month’s Twinchy Challenge is a little different. There isn’t a them but a thread. Watercolours from the Caron Collection.
Since it first came out, I’ve loved this thread and managed to accumulate a whole bin of it. And I bought three more skeins last week, two just because they were pretty. You’re probably like me in that you have lots of Watercolours.
So here’s how this challenge works. Put all your Watercolours into a pile, close your eyes and pick one at random — that’s the basic for your challenge piece.
From that Watercolours, find other threads to coordinate with it, and stitch a Twinchy. Yours can be geometric (like the one above), words, letters, or a picture. It can be whatever you like.
I want to say a couple of things about the canvas I’ve used for this Twinchy, since it’s unusual. It is a 16 count linen canvas, which may not even be made anymore. As is true of most linen the threads are somewhat uneven and the fabric is soft. I stitched this in hand, which makes it distorted. The next one I’m actually going to stitch in an embroidery hoop. I like 16 count canvas when I can find it, most threads which work on 18 and 14 mesh canvas work here.
The solid thread in the border is Baroque Silk from The Pure Palette and I’ll write more about that next week.
The hard part is going to be finding things that work with the Watercolours you pick randomly.
BTW the Watercolours pictured above is: Meadow, one of my favorites.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
Oh blimey – you’ve done it now, Janet!
I am going to have to go shopping!
I think I only have 2 Watercolors, and not much of either of them, so I just HAVE to get some more so I can do a Twinchy this month, don’t I? You will tell my husband that I had no choice but to go shopping, won’t you?
And it won’t be my fault if a “few” things other than a skein or two of Watercolors finds its way into my pile, will it?
Hehehe
Actually, I am quite happy to go and buy a couple of skeins (and I shall be sure to choose 1 or 2 by closing my eyes and grabbing them, just as you suggest) because they are so lovely. And truth be told, my husband is quite happy for me to spend a few dollars on embroidery threads – other women go out and spend a few hundred on new clothes, and I would rather have embroidery threads!
Jocelyn
It’s by going out and buying a skein or two as a little treat that I got the bin in the first place. I figure a pretty mew color is better than lipstick as a pick me up.
My problem is that I get obsessed with certain colors, and sometimes with them only when dyed by certain dyers. When they first came out I bought tons of Deep Sunset. Then they changed the colors in it and my old Deep Sunset was gone.
Then it was (and often still is) Tahiti, but only when dyed by the dyer who doesn’t put much chartreuse in it. I like the even rainbow distribution of colors in it. I makes me happy.
The new one is Autumn Frost but only in the version which I call “Pastel Tahiti.”
I can almost guarantee that if I get obsessed with a thread color, it will be a Watercolour.
Now after that brief hymn to obsessive behavior, it’s back to work.
Keep Stitching,
Janet