Today was the first day of a new Mystery Class at Bedecked and Beadazzled.   After the serenity of the last canvas, I wanted something that was fresh and frivolous so I selected a Maggie canvas.  It is called Watering Can and the original painting is by Corinna Luyken.

I love stitching her canvases.  I have another in progress and who knows what I will find at market in a few weeks. I can’t wait to see.

There are lots of fun areas on this canvas to fill with stitches and pattern and texture.  The trick to all of this is keeping it somewhat cohesive so that it doesn’t get too busy.  One of those tricks is to use related stitches. I learned this from listening to Caela Conn Tyler teach.  The more I thought about it the more I realized that it was so obvious.  Using the same stitch but changing the angle or the size makes it look different but not so different that it makes a piece busy.

The Merry Christmas Mystery canvas used quite a few Mosaic Stitch Variations.

The Deco Cat Mystery used Balloon Stitches in 2 sizes and Diagonal Scotch where the Balloon Stitch needed to go back in space.

Now to employ the same logic on our Watering Can Lady.

We stitched her face in T Stitch using only 2 ply of Soie d’Alger.  It gives a light coverage and is just enough.

Her dress was lot’s of fun.  It is a larger T Stitch but instead of working it in the traditional manner which would be horizontal rows, we worked it as a darning pattern.  See the stitch sequence below.

The reason for working it as a Darning Pattern was so that we could randomly change our stitching threads.  Yes, random. We started with one length of thread, when it ran out, we switched to the other and so forth.  It’s a mix of black embroidery floss and Kreinik #8 Braid in 060.  It makes for a subtle shimmer on the black dress.

Once all the stitching was complete, we added beads for more fun.  The beads are a wonderful bright matte blue/purple but surrounded by all that black they are toned down a bit.  In the end, her dress looks a little like formal denim when complete.

I can’t wait to see what I do next.  🙂