Grandma's Petit Point
So many Faithful Readers have asked about Grandma's petit point I decided to devote a post to her work. This first one below is called "Shepherd's Idyll", based on an original painting by François Boucher, circa 1800s. (who knew petit point charts were based on something else?) The number of stitches per inch varies with the chart type and thickness of thread; I recall Gramma telling me this piece had over 150,000 stitches in it!
Below are the other two I own; the horses were done specifically for me because I liked horses. The other hung over her fake fireplace.
My sister-in-law Sieglinde has remembered or done a fair amount of research about Gram's craft:
" The last year she sent pictures to the fairs scattered over the USA and Canada she received 28 first place or best of show awards, two seconds and one third out of 31 entries!!! The interesting thing about these pictures is that you can turn them over and they are so good you can hardly tell front from the back. [an important detail if you wanted to win first place – judges looked at the back as well as the front] She only used silk thread for her pictures and the MINIMUM number of stitches she would use was 150 stitches to the inch. For smaller things like ear rings or brooches which she also did, she would use 250 stitches to the inch or higher.
That’s the reason she would only work with silk thread. When silk thread became difficult to find she had my husband Shawn buy the complete stock from a supplier here in Edmonton and she used that stock until the day she died. If I remember correctly, that was Burlington Art Supplies. She died with an unfinished rose picture by her bedside.
Gram preferred silk thread, single strand ('preferred' is a mild term. She LOATHED cotton thread, and that's a direct quote). None of these are large works, "Shepherd's Idyll" is the largest, at 8" x 7".
This is Gram taking a rare break from petit point; a number of her pieces are visible around the clock, more were on the other walls. I'm not sure where most of these wound up, probably promised or sold to others. She sold quite a few pieces to locals over the years. When she died, her relatives got the remaining pieces. Many thanks to Shannon, Paddy and Sieglinde for sending photos of their pieces.
