Well, if she’s wearing formal beaded denim and a big fancy hat, then she must have lace too! Right?

Today was the second class of our Maggie Watering Can Lady project.  We not only finished her hat, but we stitched her jacket.  The jacket is mostly Tent Stitch, really the only way to get all those wonderful stripes in position.

The real fun of class was the collar.  It’s pulled thread on canvas!  I’ve always loved pulled thread, there just aren’t a lot of places to use it.  So, if you find one; go for it.  Pulled Thread is exactly what it sounds like, you are pulling the threads of the canvas, squishing them and moving them together to form a new pattern.  It looks like lace.

A few things to remember if you try this on another canvas; you can’t pull an area of a canvas that’s painted.  Paint doesn’t penetrate the canvas, so if you try to pull it, you will see the white canvas show through.

It’s also much easier to pull canvas threads when the canvas is wet.  The wetter the better. Now, that I’ve said that, think about it.  Wet yes, damp yes, but look at what’s around it.  Make sure there aren’t any adjoining areas that have threads that could run.

We also started the watering can.  It’s worked in Woven Brick Stitch.  I used 4 ply Mandarin Floss for the Brick Stitch and Panache for the weaving.  Very cool effect.  As an alternative, you could stitch the watering can in Burden Stitch, same look, you are just working with 2 needles.  So many choices……

More to follow when we resume class in 3 weeks.  Next weekend is the TNNA Columbus show;  there will be lots to report!