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Striped Snowman


I live in the woods which makes winter fun.  It snows and then some of it melts.  It snows again and some more of it melts.  It gets warm and the snow gets slushy.  It gets colder and turns to ice.  The snow gets dirty.  Then another layer of snow falls.  Scientists could drill core samples of this snow and extract all kinds of scientific data about what is going on in the world. 

The snow never really goes away till spring.  There are large areas with no snow at all, but in the shady northern areas there is always some snow.  And it will probably stick around until April or May.


However, there is rarely snowman snow.  A dusting of powder is more likely.  If we get the wet snow it usually falls in large quantities so I'm too busy knocking it off the trees before the branches break or the tree snaps.

So, I decided to stitch a snowman instead.  I've done small striped designs before with my Striped Mountain Scene.  I decided to make the snowman in the same style.  I started with a sketch on graph paper (big graph paper so it's easy to read and take notes on) and raided my DMC supply for whites and light blues.  The snowman itself was easy.  Adding accessories was easy.  After all, every snowman needs a hat, a pipe, stick arms and some buttons.   Deciding on how to fill the background was harder.

I tried purples but that didn't look right. Then I tried greens which I thought would work much better.  After I stitched some of the greens in I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.  At that point I simply went to the color wheel and turned to red, the complement of green.  Since I was using light colors that translated to pinks.  The resulting pink stripes really make the snowman stand out and add a rosy glow.

I never imagined a light green and a light pink background but that's how it turned out.  What background colors would you have used?

This pattern is available at http://www.patternsonline.com/ and you are highly encouranged to use whatever colors you would like if you stitch it.
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  1. Carolyn McNeilFebruary 5, 2010 at 1:11 PM

    Your snowman look good! The colors work well. I've found that pastel colors (light green, pink, etc..)tend to compliment each other - even some of the stranger combinations...
    Carolyn
    http://www.stitchopedia.com
    An encyclopedia of needlepoint stitches…

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