Late last year I bought this vintage Needle Notions Christmas wreath canvas. I was intrigued by all the ornaments to add to it. In addition to the ones in the package I have added more, tint wrapped presents, and silk ribbon bows in white and red.
Stitching it, however, is proving to be a challenge. It’s composed entirely of irregular blobs of green. About 2/3’s are a bright green, and 1/3 are a darker green. The darker green posed no problem, I stitched it in a green & silver silk/metallic blend. It sat in that condition for many months.
I picked it up again last Sunday and realized why it’s a UFO. I don’t want to stitch all the other blobs in just one green. I want the wreath below the decoration to have some interest and depth. That means using more than one thread.
No problem. I picked out three pretty green in various threads. With everything painted the same color, how am I going to get a random, irregular distribution of the colors? That’s a tough proposition. Here’s my plan:
- Stitching color by color.
- Skip two or three blobs between each oe you stitch.
- Go all around the wreath before switching to the next thread.
It’s hard to tell because I am only one the first thread and it almost exactly matches the color on the canvas, but I think it will work.
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
Marie White says
The human brain is really bad at randomness and always seeks order and organisation despite our best efforts.
In my humble opinion, if you want to create randomness, you could try closing your eyes while picking your next colour, or put your skeins in a paper bag and draw.
But my favourite would be to use a dice – since you’ve got 3 greens, I would assign two numbers to each and roll your dice to choose your next colour. With this last method you would achieve true randomness.