Virtual Book Tour: Janet M. Perry, Guest blogger (An Article about Janet's life in Bargello

VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR - JANET M. PERRY AS MY GUEST telling us about her latest book called BARGELLO REVISITED

.
For some of you who may be wondering what exactly is a Virtual Book Tour, it is simply the equivalent of an author visiting book stores to promote her or his latest book, but instead of visiting book stores the author is visiting websites or blogs. No planes to catch, no driving, we all stay in the comfort of our own home :-)
.
Janet has just recently published her latest book entitled Bargello Revisited and she is making her first stop of her Virtual Book Tour today on this blog and for this occasion Janet will be sharing with us her love of Bargello. During the coming month(s) she will be visiting other blogs and doing some fun activities there. You can read more about all this by visiting her blog and her website, links well indicated at the end of Janet's article.
.
Without any further delays, here is the article written by Janet M. Perry about her life in Bargello.
.
Enjoy :-)
.
Pierrette =^..^=

===================================================

MY LIFE IN BARGELLO (written by Janet M. Perry)
.
Janet says:
.
My love affair with Bargello probably started in about 1971 with a book. The book was Elsa Williams' Bargello. I found it at my local needlepoint store. I was entranced by the lovely shading and the wonderful patterns. I bought it and immediately started to study.
.
Back in those days, I hadn't really done much needlepoint, so this was completely new. The book had pictures of the finished needlepoint, but no charts, and the yarn colors didn't match the Paternayan my shop carried. But I loved it, so I bought several shades in the same color family, some canvas and I started to decipher the patterns.
.
It only took one and I became hooked. Almost immediately I decided to make covers for our dining room chairs (I was 14). My dad made a frame, my mom and I picked out thread colors (rust, dark green, and ivory) and I picked patterns from the book. I didn't get very far as chair covers are big, really big. It's a dream project to this day.
.
The next Bargello pieces I remember were a pair of evening purses in shades of turquoise I made while I was in college. Doing needlepoint kept me sane in the intense environment of St John's College. I was about the only student who needlepointed, endearing me to the older women there.
.
This pillow, a not very well counted version of an Elsa Williams pattern, was made around that time. If you look closely, you will see the count is off and not all the diamonds are even, but 30 years later, I still love the colors.

I also became fascinated by the idea of a solid color Bargello as a background. Being self-taught is not always a good thing as you don't know when something is hard. So my first attempt at this was a Hungarianpoint pattern and I didn't know how to count it properly. I still have the piece and it pains me to look at it.

.

Shortly after I got married, I started to branch out in my Bargello, making the pillow you see here. I became fascinated to use different threads, which was revolutionary in needlepoint in the early 80's. This one is of another classic pattern.

I explored the idea of making what I call Op Art Bargello (there's a pattern like this in the book) where there are only a few lines of color against a solid background. I still love the graphic impact of these designs. This project from Bargello Revisited is my latest Op Art Bargello.

I kept exploring ideas like single color Bargello using different threads, making a lovely Bargello scallop shell (my Mom and DD have my versions of this one) and an all-white pillow. I also kept reading every book on Bargello I could find, getting them from the library over and over again.

.

In the 90's my life got extremely busy with kids, big house, nanny and a high-pressure job, so my needlepoint changed too. I started to look for small projects, which were easily portable and fast to make. That's when I started doing the Bargello mini-socks. By my estimate I've made close to 40, every one different. I would find a pattern I liked in a book or magazine and I would buy some threads or raid the stash and make a mini-sock. The first ones I finished myself. Now I have them finished or they languish in my stash. Some of my favorites are in the book. Others I've given to friends.

.

Here are pictures of some I've done recently. The first one, still unfinished, is a Hungarianpoint medallion design. I haven't done this before and I made sort of a random outline and started to fill in. I'm not happy with it becauce the center doesn't look good. I think I'm going to try it again working from the center out.

This one, which has the charted line below it, is a scallop pattern I call swag because it looks like swags in drapes. With this I'm also trying to break out of my color rut. Orchids are not my favorite colors, but I do like this. That's a good thing about mini-socks, you can try colors here with no risk. You might not make an orchid pillow, but an orchid ornament is OK.

As a gift to you, here's the line for this pattern.

So what's next? I like the idea of trying out color schemes in mini-socks, so I think I'm going to do a series based on the colors paint companies come up with for painting a room. I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of proportions in Bargello design, so I'm going to explore changing the proportions of the colors and see what happens. I'm going off to the paint store tomorrow to get some inspiration (I also need to find paint for several rooms in my house).

-

Keep Stitching

.

Janet M. Perry

napaneedlepoint@gmail.com

http://www.napaneedlepoint.com/

http://www.nuts-about-needlepoint.com/ - blog

.

.

==========================================================

.

.

Like Janet, I have always loved Bargello too as it has always had an hypnotic effect on me with all these ups and downs, making me stitch for far longer periods of time that I would normally have done.

.

I am presently working on Desire which is a Susan Portra Design, have completed Bargello Symphony designed by Loretta Spears, design that I absolutely love, Gem Storm, a Marianne Frost design (had so much fun with this one) and my very first Bargello project which was a little scissor case.

.

Pierrette =^..^=

Virtual Book Tour: Janet M. Perry Guest Blogging: An Article about Painted Canvas

Throughout the month of September, Janet M. Perry has been visiting needlework-related blogs and shops, which is part of her special celebration for her new book called "Needlepoint Trade Secrets" and I am so happy to have Janet as a special guest on my blog today that I have rushed to make you all a little "virtual" cup so that you can have a nice cup of tea or coffee while you are making yourselves confortable to read the wonderful and instructive article that was written for this occasion.

Janet asked me what I would be interested in for her article on my blog. I thought for a brief moment and said "Painted Canvas" (as this is a weak point of mine), the mysteries of painted canvas for the stitchers, meaning how to tackle them - what stitches to use - what threads to use - are there any books that tell us, for example, if you want to stitch snow, you could use this stitch or that one and either this thread or that one and that would give you the effect you are looking for. I quickly got an answer back from Janet saying that she would be happy to write a short article for us about that topic.

Janet, before I leave the floor to you, I would like to thank you very much for thinking about doing this Virtual Book Tour. It has been fun to go along with you on each visit.

Pierrette =^..^=

Here is the article written by Janet M. Perry about Painted Canvas:

===============================

PAINTED CANVAS

Janet says:

Stitching a painted canvas looks so easy. The colors are picked out for you and all you need to do is add threads and stitches -- so why is it that so often we are not happy with the results?

Since I discovered painted canvas (in the early 80's) I've stitched hundreds of them, I even dream about canvases, threads, and stitches. As a result I've figured out some guidelines for stitching them which make it easier to do.

First I think about threads. Your canvas gives you color, but not texture. And for any given color a number of threads exist in different textures. For me, I try to pick a thread with a texture similar to what the object is in real life. For example snow, should be a white or clear sparkly thread. My favorite for this (and for stars as well) is Nordic Gold from Rainbow Gallery. I like this lightness of the thread, it's softness and it's sparkle. For hair, I like Rainbow Tweed because it has some variation in it and has just enough furiness to look realistic.

"Snuggles" (photo provided by Janet to illustrate snow)

-

The texture of the thread determines how easily it will be noticed on the finished canvas. Furry or fuzzy threads are always seen first. Metallics are just slightly less noticeable than furry threads. The more matte a thread is, the less obvious it is. So the same color thread in pearl cotton, floss and Silk & Ivory will be most noticeable in pearl cotton and least in Silk & Ivory.

-

Once you have picked out your threads, double check that you haven't picked out an attention-grabbing thread for an area which should be in the background.

-

But I've learned by trial and error, I don't know of any books which really spell this out.

-

Then I look at the canvas. Every canvas should have some areas of Tent Stitch in it. Sometimes the choice is made for you, for example faces almost always look best in Tent Stitch. Tent Stitch gives the eye a place to rest and is the neutral texture in needlepoint. It's kind of like zero on a number line.

"Jack Russell" (photo provided by Janet to illustrate Tent Stitch)

-

Once I know where Tent Stitch will be placed, I can then rank other spaces as being higher or lower than those areas. Lower spaces should have flatter or more open stitches. For these I use stitches like T Stitch, or techniques like Blackwork or Pattern Darning. For example, I almost always use Pattern Darning for skies, because the flatter stitch makes the sky look more open and bigger.

-

The places which will be higher will use stitches with more texture. This is the hardest part of picking stitches for needlepoint. The stitches you pick should be small enough to have three repeats of the stitch in every direction. This is enough for the eye to distinguish the pattern. Fewer repeats and the stitch can be mistaken for other stitches or the design can look confused. Even experienced stitchers get this wrong.

"Sakura" (provided by Janet to illustrate small stitches)

-

There are two major exceptions to this rule. One is stripes. By their very nature stripes won't have three repeats in all directions in an individual stripe, but the whole stripe pattern should be repeated, if it isn't, pick a different stripe pattern. The second is accent stitches. There are lots of these, such as Eyelets, Rhodes or Jessicas. Accent stitches, most of which can be expended easily, should be sized so a single stitch fits in an area. Most of these stitches draw attention to themselves and having partial stitches in these looks jarring. Change the size or the stitch rather than use partial stitches for accents.

-

I think another big challenge in needlepoint is adding texture to very small spaces. One easy way to do this is by picking threads with different textures, but often this does not go far enough. Then you should have a repertoire of stitches which only take up one or two threads. Some of the stitches I use again and again are Tiny Knitting (columns or rows of Continental and Reverse Continental) Needlepoint Cross Stitch (cross stitch over one intersection), and open versions of Tent Stitch. Building from that you can add high textures with French Knots or beads. Suddenly you have taken something which could look flat and given it dimension, life and subtle texture.

-

For finding stitches for particular effects, I mostly rely on my own experience. I look for stitches which have a particular shape. I use stitch dictionaries for ideas. And I'm always willing to pull out an area off if it does not work. On a piece I'm working on now, I'm stitching a blackboard. I've ripped it out twice. The first time it was because I thought the thread (#12 pearl cotton) was too small. The second time, using #8 pearl cotton, I felt the stitch, Skip Tent, was too directional. I'm now stitching it in T Stitch and like the result.

-

But these are guidelines. There can be great needlepoint which breaks the rules. But you should know what rules you are breaking and have a good reason to do so. If you start with this process, then when you divert from it, you will know why and where you are going.

--

Keep Stitching,

Janet M. Perry

napaneedlepoint@gmail.com

http://www.napaneedlepoint.com/

http://www.nuts-about-needlepoint.com/ - blog