One Saturday I taught the first of the classes on Melissa Shirley’s peacock ginger jar.  I stitched this piece back in January.  I just loved it!  One of my favorite pieces that I’ve ever stitched.

There’s been a lot of talk of stretchy flair or “ensnared flair” as Becki here likes to call it.  It’s a really simple technique where you tack down the stretched flair around the border of the area you are covering.  You use 1 strand of a matching floss or Splendor to tack down.  Flair will stretch an amazing width.  It’s like pantyhose.  Wait . . .what are those?  I’l  try to make a video of that and put that on the YouTube channel.

This is a close up of the “scrollwork.”  It is a angled satin stitch padded with Frosty Rays.  You fan out the satin stitches in order to create  a smooth appearance.

The bottom of the jar is a combination of laid stitches, Van Dyke, Satin stitch and beads.

The border is a Herringbone stitch.  The background is a Chinese Rice variation done with Ribbon Floss.

Close up of stretched Flair with beads on top

The peacock was a little challenging to bring out his features.  The painted canvas is a little hard to distinguish his head and neck.  So, I employed the same technique as the scrollwork.  I padded the area that I determined was his neck and head, in order to make it stand out from the body.  I tent stitched the body and Satin stitched the head and neck.

Ahh, and then there’s the plume.  To me, this was the show stopper of the piece.  The challenge was that this is not a real animal peacock.  It is a painted peacock on a jar. So, I didn’t want it to be furry and fluffy.  That would be weird.  So, I used 6 different fibers to create this long and short variation stitch.  There’s Silk Lame Braid, Painters Threads Overdye Ribbon Floss, Waterlilies, and tiny beads.

The corners are done in a Norwich stitch with a bead placed in the center.  I have always wanted to use this stitch!

Our second class is in a few weeks.  I can’t wait to see my students’ progress.  Two ladies were in the classroom and two on video chat on Skype.  How fun!  We have more canvases on their way.  Let us know if we can send a kit your way.

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