Stitching Blog: Dreaming of Donkeys

So, if you're Dreaming of Spring like I am (finish the series dude), donkeys aren't exactly what you're probably thinking of. Lions and Wolves and Dragons are probably more like it. :) But while elephants are one of my favorite animals, donkeys are probably right up there for me as well. They're intelligent, have a sense of humor, and are about as stubborn as I am. 

Fun story, I once worked at a camp where we used donkeys as casual transport. We didn't rely on them to haul huge amounts of gear, but you could put enough water to keep them hydrated on their back and head down the trail with them. They were fun, they got to know the staffers who usually handled them, and they were a good experience for the campers to work with. The thing is, since they are intelligent playful animals, if you tried the wrong way to lead them down the trail they would 'play' with you by refusing to go. 

Donkeys are strong animals, and no amount of camper pushing is going to get them to move if they don't want to. The trick to convincing a donkey to move is to act as if you're going to leave the donkey. Just start walking down the trail and it'll get concerned and follow you eventually. This works when you don't want it to as well lol, we once had a donkey follow a bunch of campers it had made friends with several miles until it wound up at a neighboring camp. The other camp called and asked what we should do, and we told them to just have some campers headed our way feed the donkey and lead it back to us! The moral of the story is: Always be aware of where your donkeys are. Its certainly not that camp counselors are a lazy bunch, sshh.

So,I used the same threads for the donkey that I used for the elephant. First, I used Entice No.E221 to stitch a sideways fern ray stitch. I then used Sparkle Ray's no.PS21 in a sideways continental stitch for the white stripes. The same navy Splendor silk was used in the basket weave for the blue background, as well as for the tail and mane. I didn't use the diagonal mosaic stitch I used on the elephant as the background was too small a field for the stitch to repeat its pattern enough to make visual sense. 

I sued a very silvery Sparkle Ray's thread for the star. I played around with the star quite a bit, and finally settled on something that looks a bit like a silver package all nicely wrapped up. The stitch resembles the recommendation I received on the stitch diagram for this piece, but that's mainly by accident lol. This was definitely a trial-and-failure effort before I found success. The silver border is stitched in a silver 10M Krenik.

My apologies, I didn't realize how blurry this picture is. I'll take a better picture in daylight. The navy blue Splendor silk is stitched in a diagonal full stitch. On the canvas the tail is very much raised above the donkey's leg, and the silver Entice cross stitch accents give it that much more added dimension. Petite Very Velvet in No.V610 was used to flesh out the added dimension on the legs, and on the ear (below).

In some ways at night I think the shimmer of the white and red threads comes through better on-camera. Anyway, the ear was done in the same very velvet using a basketweave stitch. The eye was done in the same shimmery black as the elephant's eye, and I had to experiment before I found a shape I liked. (She doesn't quite have a cat's eye flick on her, but its different enough from a perfect circle to give her some personality.) 

Her mane was done in the navy Splendor silk, with four threads to fill it out and give more dimension. A trick I've developed is to use a long stitch (over three or four holes in the canvas) and compress it so that you're stitching in every hole of the section. Instead of a seamless cover on the canvas, you get this very bumpy, raised section which I think is perfect if you're doing anything but flat-ironed straight hair. There are a couple of other stitches you can use to give added dimension to a section, but I like this one for the mane because you have this sense of flow, a visual cue that the mane-hair starts at a point and travels down the donkey's neck.

Like the elephant, I'm going to go back over the outline later and fill out the outline in white Splendor. I may also use the navy Splendor and anchor a few cut strands in the mane and hair, so that it looks like horsehair (or donkey hair lol) coming out of the canvas. We'll see. :) 

And here's the completed donkey! I think she and the elephant both have enough variation in the stitches that I think they have visual movement, and definition to the sections, but I don't feel I got too clever on the pieces. Again, I'll try to take a picture during the days that showoff the glisten and the sparkle of the white and red threads, I think they're just stunning in real life. 

That's all for now, till next time!