Everyone remembers "that beautiful love scene" as
Rhett refers to it a few moments later (after a vase is hurdled over his head I
might add) that profession of love between Scarlett and Ashley that repeats in
periodic scenes throughout the movie. It's the first scene where we get a
glimpses of what Ashley Wilkes is really made of. Excuse me if I'm underwhelmed.
I've devoured the book and I've seen the movie hundreds of times but I still
can't wrap my head around what Scarlett's infatuation is all about, why didn't
he just cut her loose right then??... but we wouldn't have such a great
story I suppose... but that being said, it will be interesting to see how my
personal lack of enamor for the "elegant Mr. Wilkes" plays into my stitch
selections.
He certainly can't stand out like Scarlet does. It's during
antebellum after all, we have to let the ladies steal the show! It wouldn't be
gentlemanly otherwise. Luckily though this character is pale and always seemed
to fade into the background so I'm going to respect that and keep him true to
character by stitching him in a rather quiet way to balance out the
ladies.
I used a much paler shade for the bulk of Ashley's skin;
Vineyard Conch C-136 using Splendor S896 and S1147 to highlight and
define his skin and S1149 for his cheek color. Speaking of skin colors, if you
haven't acquired the Splendor skin cards, I would highly recommend seeking them
out. There is Blush which is what I pulled from on this and Bronze color ways
(which we will see later). They are a must-have in my opinion for anyone
stitching people regularly. It is so convenient for shading to have so many
flesh-tones on one card and the colors on each coordinate so well together so
it takes a lot of the guess work out of choosing shades.
His lips were stitched with four strands of Splendor S1041. I
tent stitched them and then wrapped them but I wasn't satisfied with how they
turned out so I wrapped them again in the opposite direction.
His hair is stitched a similar way as we stitched Scarlett (you
can read about that HERE) using Vineyard Snapdragon C-049.
Ashley's shirt is stitched in white Splendor S802 doing a
Cashmere stitch to follow the shape. The collar is stitched in a skip
tent using the same white Splendor. The shirt stripes are stitched in S947 and
I first stitched one long stitch down the entire stripe coming up in the bottom
left and going through the canvas at the top right of the stripe and then
basketweave over that long stitch, this gives the stripe a subtle lift. The
vest is stitched with three stands of DMC Floche 800 in Diagonal Mosaic and
Reverse Diagonal Mosaic and I used Steel Grey High Luster Kreinik 010HL using
French knots for the vest buttons. The tie is stitched using Neon Rays N01 in
brick stitch over two. There again, I played with stitch direction to add
dimension and the knot area of the tie is vertical brick and the two sides were
done in horizontal brick.
Now this brings me to a decision, what to do about the areas
where one element goes into another shown in the areas circled below.
On the left Scarlett's hair bow will be in front, as will
Melanie's veil on the right. I will be doing the hair bows in silk ribbons when
I am almost done the entire piece and the veil will be something fabulous but I
don't want to reveal my plans just yet, but I want it to be on top of Ashley's
suit jacket so I'm going to stitch the suit jacket right on top of both areas
covering them up and keep a photo to reference so I know what goes where later
on. First, I back stitched the outlines of his lapels and wrapped the
back stitching using the Neon Rays N01 and then the bulk of Ashley's suit jacket
was stitched using Splendor S889 in Byzantine #2 (from the book Stitches for
Effects) stitch on the left and then I reversed the direction on the right-hand
side. Playing with direction is a very easy way to add some dimension and
interest without making the piece too busy and it is an interesting way to
visually break up areas that are the same color or stitched in the same
thread.
So going back to the beginning of my post about Mr. Wilkes, when
I think of him, I usually associate him with books, maybe it's because that
first love scene with Scarlett seemed to be in a library. My second favorite
book happens to be Gone with the Wind and although I read it digitally, I have
a much loved edition that just so happens to look like my magnet I mentioned in
a previous post. And what is that saying about what you love you have to give
away?? Well, in the spirit of that saying, I
have a magnet and a matching needle case that I'm going to give away as a set. How do you win them? Please comment
below on who your favorite Gone with the Wind character is and why, please also include your email address. Contest closes at 4 PM on April 7th. On April 8th,
everyone's name will go in a bowl and one of our needlepoint students at B.F. Goodstitch will draw the name of the winner (it could be you!). The winner
will be contacted by email. Duplicate comments will only be entered once.
See, you never know what's going to happen around here so please
consider subscribing so you don't miss any of the fun!
