The City

The first needlepoint I want to tell you about is my most recently completed project. I call this one “The City”

I found this needlepoint at Annie & Co in NYC. Although I had another needlepoint at home in reserve, I simply fell in love with this piece. I loved the subtle shades of grey it was painted, with the brilliant highlights of dark blue. Furthermore, I thought it would a fitting project to remember my time spent living in NYC. I bought it at the beginning of my graduate school career and finished during finals of my last semester.

Here is a picture of the piece before I started it.

For this piece, I chose to work with stranded cotton (embroidery floss). Stranded cotton is one of (if not THE) least expensive materials you can work with. I wanted to keep the cost of this piece down, and simply let the colors and stitch selection speak more than the choice of threads. (Keep on the lookout for another post about thread selection!)

I snapped another picture when I was in the beginning stages of starting the piece. Although I’m sure everyone has their own way of attacking new projects, I started this one by completing buildings where I was sure I knew what my design would be. I think what this picture really shows is how a little change in stitch can add new dimensions to a piece. Take a look in the bottom left corner at the black columns. My choice to have vertical columns and horizontal columns, in my humble opinion, helps differentiate between the top of one building and the side of another. I continued to attack the piece one building at a time, aiming to give each one it’s own unique character.

Several months of wor, and one fantastic framing job I can’t take credit for later…my city (and my stay in the city) was complete.

Please excuse the glare…I’m still trying to work out the best way to take pictures. The gloomy weather outside didn’t help much.

In this blurry close-up of the sky, you can see that I made it out of an open stitch — meaning the canvas shows through just a  bit. I did this intentionally because the canvas was painted so beautifully with the shades of grey fading as you get closer to the skyline. I didn’t think this could be replicated with such elegance without an open stitch. Also, I thought the open “bubbly” look would give the appearance of clouds.

Finally, here is a close-up of the boat and the water. I think this really shows how varying stitches can add so much to a piece. I made the boat out of long stitches that covered the entire length of the boat. The water was made with 3 strands of black and 1 strand of blue and stitched over 3 at a time to give a rippling water effect. In this picture, you can also see a white buiding that was stitched in the opposite direction, and a grey building that has a patter of alternating rows over 1 and over 2.

Overall, I am VERY pleased with how this piece came out. I think it’s a fabulous tribute to my time spent in living in the city, and I am happy to display it in my current apartment that is thankfully NOT in a city!!!