Fine Needleworks
It is all about stitching...Canvaswork
I'm also working on Nova, by Genny Morrow. This is a canvas piece of needlework. It consists of nearly 400 small squares of needlepoint. It only uses four stitches: tent, cashmere, mosaic and Scotch. However it uses 118 different colors. Like the Crown of Pearls (pulled thread) sampler, each square (12 stitches by 12 stitches) can be done at a single sitting.
I had seen Nova completed at a local store exhibition and loved the effect of the color changes and the light reflections from the stitch textures. When a friend recently offered me her leftover specialty threads from when she stitched the piece, I couldn't resist.
It's funny because many people first learned to stitch on canvas, but I didn't. I have been stitching since childhood and have only touched canvas in the last three years. I hadn't been drawn to it because I only knew about the wool tapestries done as chair pillow covers and wasn't interested in doing the equivalent of "stitching by number" when there were so many other embroidery stitches.
I joined a new needlework group about three years ago and, to be friendly, I agreed to start work on the group project piece. This was done on canvas and while it was quite easy, it involved several stitches I hadn't done before. I also found that the rough fabric (compared with linen and Aida cloth) was not hard on my already dry hands as I expected and I enjoyed working on a base fabric that didn't warp with typical stitching.
Nova's designer Genny Morrow (now deceased) has a reputation of being an excellent designer but with weak instructions. However, with a little research, I was able to find instructions for the four stitches and plowed ahead. I've only done three rows of 18 squares so far, but the variety of patterns and color changes is quite amazing. The photo on the left shows some of the stitched squares.
If you find the idea of 400 squares in a single piece intimidating, you are not alone. I have been very careful to not set myself deadlines with this piece. I pick up and work on it for a while until another project grabs me. I then put it away for a while and work on it when my next piece is finished. You could of course take a small group of squares, say 4 by 4 and make that up as a separate piece.
An alternative is to try another Genny Morrow piece called First
Step. This is again a series of squares, this time 12 stitches
by 12 stitches. The whole piece contains 49 squares.
This is another piece that focuses on color changes. You take four colors and three shades (light, medium, and dark) in each of these colors. You stitch in from each corner either working from light to dark, as shown in the photo, or working from dark to light. While some of the needlework stitches used may be new to you, each quadrant is the same combination of stitches but worked in a different color. For example, the corner squares are each stitched with the same stitch.
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