It Couldn't Have Been More Perfect!

Last Friday's mail brought me a gift from Kreinik!  I'm always thrilled to receive anything from the thread companies.  And I always use them in my work.  Sometimes, it will be a while before I have the right project that a thread would be a good match for, but I am always grateful to have a supply to choose from.  (I do live an hour+ away from the one remaining needlepoint store in Tucson.  sigh.)

Friday's arrival brought me 4 colors of Kreinik's new Wired Facets, a bead like metallic thread that can look like jewels or beads.  I received black, silver, gold and pearl.  Factes resembles a Bullion, Frieze or Jaceron real metal thread.  The beauty of the added wire is that it can be shaped and couched to the surface of your canvas.  It can also be plunged into a canvas hole.

Receiving it when I did was perfect timing.  I was finishing up "Coyote in the Afternoon," a piece I'm scheduled to teach at EGA's National Seminar,  Oct. 18-24, 2014, Dreams and Legends, to be held in Phoenix, AZ.

Coyote is a fine art piece painted by Prescott, AZ artist Carolyn Schmitz.  She gave me permission to render her fabulous painting in a needleworked mixed media, combining various materials and techniques. 

Oh, how I loved working on this piece!  Being a Southern AZ girl my whole life, I've seen everything she depicted:  all the animals (There are two in the piece, the coyote being one of them.  Can you find the other?) and all the various plant life.  As a child, I played with mesquite beans, and I've eaten them too, then, and more recently. They are quite nutritious and sweet tasting.  Coyote wears them as decoration, but I suspect she might nibble on the one next to her mouth. 

I loved re-creating the creosote seeds she wears around her neck.  As a child, I played with those too, found their fuzziness compelling like tiny teddy bears.   And I will never tire of the smell of wet creosote after a summer rain!  It takes me right back to the big bush in my childhood yard, where we played in the dirt under it's shade, and harvested the fuzzy seeds and tiny yellow flowers for our doll houses.

But back to the Facets.  The last thing I had to do before taking my piece into town tomorrow to be framed, was to create the Checkered Skipper Butterfly 'pendant' that adorns the creosote seed necklace.  The wings are stitched individually on fabric using a stump work technique, (Thank you Jane Nicolas for enriching my life with your work!) and attached to the canvas.  They are embellished with Sundance size 14 seed and hex beads.  The body is created with the Black Facets thread, which could not have been more perfect to use!  So, perfect timing, perfect thread, perfect application!

Be on the look out for this great new product in your LNS.  You don't have to wait til 2014 to use it ya know!