Our snowman mystery class is really a  lot of fun.  The snowman is coming to life and popping off the canvas.  In this lesson we are going to start dressing the snowman.  He definitely needs a hat and a scarf!  And it is snowing out so who would be surprised to find snow on his hat.

Again the most important things are the outlines.  How do we get those to work for us and not be a challenge.

The hat is black, so that’s easy, we combined the black outlines into the body of the hat and voila he looks dapper!

The scarf is another matter.  It is stitched in Knit stitch with a direction change for the tails.  I selected colors that were dramatic;  pink and red, lime green and kelly.  The colors are farther apart than what I would usually use for shading but in such a small space this helps us create dimension and make the scarf look full and fluffy around his neck.

The other little magic trick is stitching over one of the outlines, not both.  I stitched over the outline at the top of the scarf and the top of the scarf tails but left the one below showing to create a bold shadow.  If you look at the stitched scarf versus the blank canvas last week, you can see how well this works.

You know I love beads and I love doing different things with beads.  Typically we attach our beads in nice neat little rows on a canvas.  I did exactly that to create the snow on this canvas but then, drumroll please…..  I added even more beads on top. Just pile them on, add as many as you like.  In mixed shades of white, light blue and lavender it creates fluffy wind borne snow.  In shades of gold, it creates a golden treasure found beneath the sea.

We also started the inner circle framing the snowman.  It’s painted as a striped circle and while that’s true to the art, I wanted to calm it down just a little. Yes, surprising coming from me!  I used a single thread and stitch over both colors.

That’s it for now.  We had snow this week and more snow or ice is maybe on the way next week.  That could mean extra stitching time, or it could mean more time shoveling.

Talk to you soon.