Stones of Venice Footstool – decisions about the sides
First Side Panel Completed
When last you saw the Stones of Venice Footstool, I was lamenting the speed with which I had finished the top panel, which had brought me face to face, far too soon for comfort, with the challenge of deciding what to put on the side panels.
I had originally thought to devise a smaller pattern, of some sort, borrowing from some of the ideas in the comments on the last post and from any convenient pictures of the Doge’s Palace that I could find online, but when it came to it, I felt that it might prove both difficult and unrewarding to create repeating patterns which worked well beside the larger pattern on the top.
Side Panel Close Up
My first step, therefore, was to bring the blue more to the fore by creating a blue border for each panel. It seemed to me that this would help the side panels to stand away from the top and set it off nicely. After much poring over my needlepoint stitch books I settled on Greek Stitch, which is a sort of long armed cross stitch. Again, this solved the question of having the stitches running with the top on some of the sides and against on others, which had been worrying me quite a bit.
I worked out a way to turn the corners so that each side panel could be a self-contained unit, and decided to to work all four borders while I considered my next move. Which floated swiftly to the top as I stitched. The blue on the top panel was the central motif, and on the sides was forming the edge – so the obvious continuation was to reverse the order of the colours. Challenge met, I think!
Yes, looks a hard wearing stitch, and it think it works well to have the blue as the focal colour on the sides.
You’re bringing a truly Venetian feel to the project!
I just KNEW you’d meet the challenge! Love this color combination.
It’s a good choice – bold but less complex than the top, so it doesn’t steal the limelight from the main pattern. And, yes, I think this looks like a suitably durable stitch for an area that may get knocked and rubbed in use.
That is a very good choice, it seems to tick all the boxes and it will be durable.
Challenge definitely met and exceeded!
It goes beautifully with your earlier work – and the simple pattern won’t detract, so I think that’s a good call 🙂
🙂