Scarlet Quince News
July 2014

We've expanded the tutorial we announced last month, Locating the First Stitch. In particular, we explain in more detail our system for marking the center of a multipage chart.

We've also added another new tutorial, Navigating a Multipage Chart. It explains how to use the maps at the bottoms of the chart pages to know where you are and find the next page you want to work on. This was based on questions and feedback we received about the original tutorial -- always valuable -- and particularly so since often things that seem simple and intuitive turn out to be complicated when you come to explain them!

Two of our new patterns are by suggestion but we haven't heard from the people who suggested them. (Just a reminder, if your email address changes, you can update it on our Member services page.) We did a detail version of Ophelia because a lot of people suggested it but may be taken aback by how large it turned out to be. (It has to be this large -- 620 x 421 stitches -- or she wouldn't have eyes.)

We don't usually go into the background of the art we use, but Ophelia has a particularly interesting history. Millais spent several months painting the background on the banks of the Hogsmill River in Ewell. He struggled with flies and wind, and was threatened with a summons for trespassing in a hay field. It was winter by the time Millais was ready to add the figure of Ophelia. His model was Elizabeth Siddal, later wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, model for several Pre-Raphaelite artists, and an artist in her own right. She posed fully clothed in a tub full of water in his studio, with oil lamps under the tub to keep the water warm. On one occasion, the lamps burned out and Millais, intent on his work, failed to notice, and Siddal didn't complain. She became severely ill and her father demanded that Millais pay her medical bills, which he did.

Ophelia
John Everett Millais

The Japanese Footbridge
Claude Monet

Ophelia (detail)
John Everett Millais