Feel Like I've Built a House

Here's a photo of the current progress on my mantle canvas. I apologize for the shadow in the upper right hand corner, I think that was caused by the flash bouncing off the magnifier off to the side.

For this section, the actual fireplace itself, I completely ignored the stitch guide which accompanied this canvas.

Hopefully, you can see that there are quite a few stitches here intended to simulate an architectural effect. I spent a lot of time researching what I was trying to achieve. First of all, we don't have a fireplace in our home, which worked to both my advantage and disadvantage. The advantage was, I had no idea what my real fireplace might look like, and just how much detail there might be. On the other hand, I could be putting in way more detail than ever could exist in real life. What I was trying to demonstrate was a beautiful, carved wooden mantle, with lots of detailed woodworking. Some of the stitches I used here were the Quick Stitch (from my Stitches for Effect books, Robertson & Howren), various gobelin variations (made up on my own), elongated tent & reverse elongated tent (from 176 Stitches to Unlock Creativity, Snyder & Hardin), and Triangular Rhodes & Rectangular Rhodes, again from the Stitches for Effect series, Roberston & Howren). There is also a cashmere variation for the floor; my inspiration was Amy's Cookbook for Stitchers. I spent time looking through all my books, and my old Needlepoint Now Magazines, searching for ideas that would work. I hope it all works. Certainly, should I ever GET a fireplace, I have plenty of thoughts about the woodwork!

I have now started on the inside of the fireplace, where the fire is. Here, I find myself going back to the stitch guide. Now that I have (hopefully) conquered my cold (with the help of a lot of sleep this past weekend and modern medicine), I think I will be done with this canvas soon, so you can see the completed work.

Later, D