Showing posts with label Miss Scarlett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miss Scarlett. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

The dress

The dress worth fighting over.....In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett's younger sister, Careen, whines to her mother that she wants to wear Scarlett's green dress to the barbecue. She's turned down, of course, but in actuality, the dress is white with a green lily of the valley flower type print with gorgeous ruffles across the bodice and shoulders. Which lead me to my dilemma, the movie costume is one thing but the way my canvas has been designed is very different. When in doubt, I go with how the canvas is painted and channel the spirit of the dress as opposed to killing myself by trying to be too literal.

So how to do it justice? With such beautiful shading, I hate to cover it up since that's one of the things I value the most in a hand painted canvas and the inspirational dress in the movie seems like a sheer overlay with a white lining, I think light stitching will be just the thing. I decided to go with a classic but easy to follow pattern of over three, under one, over three darning pattern on the vertical using two strands of silk Splendor. I'm using S1055 for the palest barely green shade, S905 for the medium-light green, S996 medium-dark green and S907 dark green. Before I get into the darning pattern, I'm going to deal with the dark green swirls, trust me, it will save my sanity.

In general I like to stitch strategically and I've stitched myself into enough corners to know it's easier to think about stitching order towards the beginning than to have to deal with headaches later. I have decided to do a wrapped backstitch over the dark green swirls using three strands of S907. By doing the backstitch and wrapping first, I can slip my needle underneath he wrapping while doing my darning pattern if necessary to keep my pattern going but also it is easier to do the wrapping portion without surrounding stitching so you won't have to avoid catching the darning stitches while trying to wrap. I don't want the wrapping to be too tight so I did my back stitches over two canvas threads at a time making sure the stitches and watching my tension. The important thing with wrapped back stitch is to always wrap in the same direction per swirl. So either outside of the line towards the inside or inside going towards the outside of the line, it doesn't matter which as long as you always keep your needle wrapping in the same direction thus avoiding making a tangled mess. Wrapped back stitch is also great for rounded lines.


 So now that the swirls are out of the way, a few things about darning patterns. Most darning patterns start on one end and continue to the opposite side. Since the stitching is so light, you can't start/stop a thread in the middle of a row. You also can't bury your thread to start it because you will see these mechanics through your light stitches. I will often use a L or pin stitch to start and stop my threads which essentially is taking a stitch vertical and then horizontal and I often go over them a few times just for good measure. Your thread should not be knotted so the L/pin stitches lay flat and your framer will just put the mat right on top of these stitches in the margin or they will be pulled to the back area of the framing as part of the lacing with no issues. If you are finishing as a stand up or ornament, your finisher will also know what to do (probably a row of machine stitching to prevent fraying of the canvas and these stitches will get caught and held safely). Since this pattern has so much going on, these things are not as much concern, so when I did my wrapped back stitch I did a few little jumps. And now I'm going to take a leap of faith and do something almost as shocking as a woman in mourning dancing the Virginia Reel, I'm going to show you my backside!


As you see, I followed under my back stitches on the backside to avoid as much traveling as possible and I jumped to the closest swirl. If it was too far away, I used a waste away knot and then buried under my back stitches later. Between the darning stitches the back stitches and dealing with the dots, you won't even see it. 

With all these color changes this is also a good time to mention thread management. The concept is to pull threads you are going to use again out of your way so you don't catch them while stitching other areas or colors. I use a combination of pulling them off to the side and wrapping them around the tacks of my frame on the front and keeping them on the needle and using a handy magnet... and speaking of magnets I can't believe I haven't shown the one I have been using.... there really is a magnet to go with every project if you look hard enough and I just couldn't resist this one:






So back to our darning pattern. Here is a quick illustration of the darning pattern I used. 

So now what to do with those dots? I know this is a day dress but I couldn't help but think sequins. It is still pre-war after all so a little glamour is not unheard of but still keeping in mind this is a day dress, I decided to meet in the middle and go with matte sequins. They weren't easy to find but I did and BF can help you find them too if you give them a call. I used a super thin invisible quilting thread to attach them.

And this whole plan is being repeated on the bodice except the ruffles which I have BIG plans for... but alas, we are back to where we started regarding stitching order. I plan on doing some major 3D ribbon work for the ruffles and we all know if I stitched that now it would catch on all my other stitching and probably get worn out and wrecked so I'm going to hold off and do that towards the end. But stay tuned because we are going to give you all the ins and out when we tackle them.

And here we are with the progress on the dress so far along. 

And "I'm ready for my closeup Mr. DeMille". . . oops, WRONG movie!

So that means ladies and gents that next time we are (finally) moving on to another character.... who will it be I wonder? Will it be the scoundrel bootlegger? Or the always lovely and appropriate Melanie? Don't miss a single episode, subscribe to our blog via the box in the upper right hand side for delivery right to your inbox. 

In the meantime, Fidelis and I wish you a healthy new year full of enjoyable stitching. 

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Well I do declare, it's been a terribly long time since my last post. I wish I could say I was at a southern plantation doing research but no such luck, I've been working like a field hand getting my yard under control before winter sets in. 

But who cares about me, let's get back to our southern bell, Miss Scarlett, in particular let’s talk about her hair. Now I will admit, stitching hair can be confusing. It's often painted in a single large block of color which can be a little daunting because it doesn't give you any real direction on how the stitches should go and this was the case with Miss Scarlett's. My personal favorite hair moment in Gone with the Wind is when Scarlett pulls her sister's curl. If I had a sister, I bet I would understand....let's hope trying to stitch all these hairstyles in this piece doesn't have me wanting to pull my own hair out! Luckily though, I've tackled a good amount of hair in my day so I've come up with a few tricks over the years, or at least things that work for me.


I've found when dealing with hair, my first thought usually leans towards texture. Do I want it slick, shiny and smooth like the ladies in those Pantene commercials? Or do I want it a little courser or thicker? The answer to these questions drive my decision on what thread to use. If I want Pantene lady, I'll go with something stranded like Splendor as you can't beat the sheen of stranded silk. If it's a difficult color to match or I want it a little more flat (like for a mermaid), I'll look at cotton floss or Floche (although not my favorite). But if I want coarser, bouncy hair, which in this case I do, I'll go with something with bit of a twist, like Vineyard or Pepperpot. For Scarlett I'll be using Vineyard Dark Earth #C-042. I find the color name slightly ironic since the scene before she wears this green dress is when her father explains that for anyone who is Irish "the land is like their mother" and that "land is the only thing that lasts". . . earth/land, they’re the same thing in my book. 

If you watch the movie it's hard to see exactly what's going on with Scarlett's hair in the barbecue dress scenes, I actually found a few drawings online that I found more helpful than trying to tell from photographs or the movie. It seems around the temples the hair is pulled back, which means that the different sections of the hair will be angled in different directions. When faced with a situation like this, I often find it's easier to mark it out before stitching. I know some people use the thread they're going to use to put in directional stitches, but more often I use either a Dritz Fineline Air Erasable pen (which only works on blondes or light colors since the ink color is purple), or if the hair is dark, like in this case, I find a white chalk pencil – like dressmakers use -- especially handy, and unlike the air erasable, I can mark it one night and come back the next day and decide if my approach is still on track or if I need to make adjustments. With air erasables they often fade away in 12-24 hours (depending on humidity) so be forewarned. The encourage every stitcher to seek out these two products. They last practically forever, aren't a big investment and you will use keep finding uses for them.



So in marking off my direction lines, I put lines near the bows in first, then the long waves and then the lines on the top third of her head that is being pulled back. As I mentioned, I found a drawing online very helpful but if this wasn't a movie character with a specific frame of reference, you could look at google images for inspiration to help you figure out how to break it up or use the white or blue chalk pencils with a damp clean cloth or new makeup sponge as the perfect eraser so you can experiment, or you could use the air erasable and then use the chalk over it once you figure out what you want.  Here is the result of my chalk lines.


A word of friendly advice when you have hair broken up in different directions. I stitch each area with its own thread. Even if I have enough left with my working thread, I will often stop that thread and start again in the fresh area. I know this might sound like unnecessary work but I do this so if I have an issue in my next area, I can cut/pull it out and not have to worry about the previous area which I'm already happy with. And here is progress after a short evening of work. 




We all like to think the next area will go as smoothly but if you encounter a challenge in the next and have to take it out, you will be glad you put in the 30 seconds of extra effort. And speaking of which, you may have noticed that my chalk lines in the second picture above is different than what I stitched in the progress picture directly above. I initially misread the sections directly below the bows. Thankfully, I (mostly) follow my own advice and I’m glad I did because the stitches in the sections directly below the bow were "self-contained" so when I figured out my “misread”, I could take them out and shift gears without much angst in the top of the head area which I was happy with.

I did the crown of the head with an angled satin. The areas directly below the bows are done in long and short and the draping hair areas on the sides were done in a combination of long and short, stem and split stitch. I like split stitch when trying to create waves because it seems to make for a smoother transition to change directions to create the wave. I often put in a few dividing lines and then start filling in, it keeps my lines from going too far astray. Here is an example of my initial dividing lines to break it up.


And finally, here is my finished product. Including eyebrows which I kept pretty simple, as don't need her looking like Brook Shields circa 1982 . . . 


So up next, we're going to tackle that amazing BBQ dress... and be warned, like the movie, we might need an intermission and do the dress in two blog posts.

In the meantime, please consider subscribing to my blog for delivery of new posts right to your inbox and if so, please remember validate your subscription by clicking the link in the email you will receive. You won’t want to miss a single episode of our Gone with the Wind extravaganza!