The Exemplary 2023:
2nd Place, Non-Professional Non-Original with Instruction

This is a birth sampler for my fourth grandson, Reid. This is a painted canvas by Gimmies. I selected this canvas as it reminded me of Reid, a little imp. The stitch guide was written by Debbie Stiehler when I took her class, Interpreting the Painted Canvas at NAN Assembly in 2018. For the majority of the design, I followed her stitch guide. Thread choices were not always followed as I would try a thread and it might not look right. So, it would come out and be replaced. I chose a totally different stitch than what was suggested for the background as well as the thread. The background is stitched in DMC floss using only one strand so that it would recede into the background. I added the cloud for the dragon to rest upon so it wasn’t just suspended on the canvas.