Wynken, Blynken & Nod

Wynken, Blynken & Nod one night, set off in a wooden shoe... sailed on a river of crystal light into a sea of dew. "Where are you going, and what do you wish?" the old moon asked the three. "We've come to fish for the herring fish that live in this beautiful sea!"

Have you heard this story before? It's been one of my favorite lullaby's since we sang it in choir when I was in high school, yes I was a choir geek. Surprised? President of the club in my senior year, actually. Hehe... yeah...

This was what I chose to embroider for my partner, Nicole in the second half of the Phat Quarter Embroidery Books Swap. I decided to use the cover art from a copy of the book that I owned, illustrations by Sheilah Beckett. This is another picture heavy post, I hope you don't mind.
You can enlarge any of the pictures by simply clicking on them.

 Here's the cover, my inspiration

I've had the idea to stitch this cover art for some time, but never had a reason to do so. When I saw that Nicole was my "send to" partner, I knew right away what I wanted to make for her. I weighed this carefully, I always want my partners to get something they really like and want, and I almost didn't do this piece in favor of making something she'd suggested, but I couldn't shake the feeling that she would like this. I've been a fan of Nicole's work and Follow The White Bunny since I began stitching two years ago and I felt that while different from her work, this had a familiar vibe, whimsical, but not silly, and pretty and thoughtful, but not overly sweet. That's my kind of style too! 

It starts with a tracing.

Then some simple outlines and some hair...

I for the hair I used mainly stem stitch for all three children.

Next, some colorful fish...

 I used rayon floss, in a stem stitch to outline, and filled with a rainbow variegated open fly stitch to make "scales".

Next was the mast, and some flying ribbons... (and Doctor Who - I'm utterly hooked!!)

I decided a plain mast was too boring, so I quilted on a crescent moon and a hanging star

And more hair touch up after the mast was appliqued and secured with a blanket stitch.

Next came the net. The text of the poem says that the fishermen three have "Nets of silver and gold", so I had to make our little boy a silver net. This net had me quite tripped up. I actually stitched it twice, I snipped out the first version entirely. When I completed it the first time, I released the tension from the q-snap, and something went wonky with the stitching, the Kreinik thread I used got wavy and looked strange to me, other people said it looked fine and I should leave it alone, but I just couldn't. It bothered me that much. After a day or two, I  started again, this time with success! The tension was much better, the net kept its shape when I removed it from the hoop.

Lastly was the waves, oh the waves! I consulted Nicole's tutorials for some pointers here...

(Somehow I managed to miss pictures of these until after I'd done the color tinting.)

I used many different colors here, chosen to match the color of the water in the illustration as possible. Lots of different kinds of stitches here as well, some gleaned from Nicole's own website. Fill stitches aren't yet a strong point of mine, but after this project, I think I rather like them!

Next was the color tinting, I used color pencils for this, it was fast and easy and gave an immediate, dramatic effect.

Subtle skin tones and a slight blush to his sweet cheek.

Warm flush across the skin on her face, neck and hand...

Color added focus to the center of the piece.

Every body got a bit of color, even the baby and her bear...

Can you see Baby's collar? This is the tiniest text I've ever done!

The color tinting was the last step before hooping up this piece. I painted the hoop a soft dove grey/blue and added a layer of frost over it so it had some sheen and was smooth to the touch.

Before hooping, I layered a fluffy piece of quilt batting so that the finished piece would be soft to the touch and stand up off of the hoop just a bit more. I was really pleased with the effect.

Ready to see it completed?

 Viola!

Pretty close to the cover art, I'd say!

Nicole received her piece a couple of days ago, and I'm so happy that she likes it! It's now hanging on the wall of her living room among other very beautiful embroideries, so far from its orgins in California, all the way to The Netherlands! Nicole also featured this piece on Feeling Stitchy this morning!! I'm so honored to see something I've made featured there!

I'm so happy with the way the finished embroidery came out, there are a LOT of different stitches and components that comprise this piece, satin, stem, blanket and back stitches, open fly, French knot, brick and chain stitches, couching, applique, quilting, color tinting, rayon, metallic and Keirnik threads and many, many, many hours. Everything but the kitchen sink, basically. I gave it everything I had.

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What'cha think friends? Did I do ok?

oxo,

Lisa