I’ve seen quite a few versions of Hot Stuff, by DebBee’s Designs and loved them all. The original was done in yellow, red and orange – hence the name; though DebBee has also charted it in more green/grey tones. I decided to use my usual cool colours …
I had been planning to take progress pictures, and blog about how I decided which colours and threads to use in each section, but somehow I just kept stitching. It was really a fun piece to stitch, with so many interesting techniques. It also uses different threads, some of which are difficult to find around here. However I had some ecru Neon Rays so I had to find a variegated thread that would go with the ecru, then chose the soldic colours from there.
One fairly major deviation I did from the pattern was in the very top and bottom squares. The pattern called for one of them to be in a variegated thread with the Rhodes stitches across the square done in rayon. Then use the same threads but in reverse for the other sqaure. I didn’t like the expanse of rayon, so used another variegated, in darker tones of the same colours.
I haven’t cropped the photo, so you can see how it was just plain old white canvas which I coloured myself. I use ordinary acrylic artist’s paints and a fairly thick dry brush. Don’t load the brush too heavily with paint or it globs up and blocks the holes. I just brush all over, without worrying about getting it even; I think a bit of mottling or uneven coverage adds to the hand-crafted look.
As usual, you can click on the picture to go to Flickr and then right click to see it up close.
