I hope you liked this free patterns month. There was lots of stitchy goodness here as well as plenty of inspiring patterns ands projects for you to stitch. Here’s a summary of what we saw: Turquoise Cross Pinwheel Quilt Block Pincushion Try-a-Stitch Package Think Pink (inside this article) Cross Stitch patterns to adapt Kreinik’s Free Patterns Star’s Berlinwork Cushion DMC’s Floral Tote Plan Ahead Independence Quilt Twinchie Caron’s Byzantine Ornament Scissors Case Mythbusters Quote Seize the Day Thread Bobbins Needlework Keeper If all these weren’t enough there are plenty of other ways to find posts about free patterns on Nuts about Needlepoint. The easiest way is to use the categories, found in the dark gray boxes at the top of every page. Every post that has a free pattern, mine or not, will be in the category, free patterns, found under design types. Come Stitch with Me (under Community) has
Monthly Archive:: August 2010
I love this free design of Star’s in so many ways. The saying, “Seize the day” in Latin, is one it is always good to remember. I love the look of the lettering and the cracked marble. The leaves on the lower left are Acanthus leaves. Although Star explains in her post why she put them there. I also like them here because they remind me of the abundance of God’s grace and of creation. Here’s why. I used to live in a house with Acanthus planted all along the driveway. In northern California they grow very well. Being big and flashy they were a nice driveway plant. But they also attracted snails, seemingly billions of them. Now snails are also really common in Northern California and the bane of many gardeners. But here I had my own personal snail traps. Except for the holes in the leaves, and with
Originally posted 2009-01-12 22:38:57. Republished by Blog Post PromoterYou may have been wondering why you haven’t heard from me for a few days. The simple answer is that I moved and it’s taken me until now to get my computer connected. I did some posts in advance which took me through until Friday, thinking, silly me, that if I was moving on Tuesday surely I would be back in action by Saturday. HA! The new house didn’t close until Friday. No worries, even though I was living from a paper bag and at a hotel whose beds were harder than some floors, I could get to the web to check my email now and again. We moved Friday and the cable guy came to hook up the Internet. On Friday night I tried to hook up the router but had no signal. That’s because the cable modem wasn’t hooked up
Originally posted 2008-07-29 12:28:53. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThreads: Dinky Dyes has just released their first collection of silk ribbon. The ribbon comes in 4mm & 7mm widths in their 20 best-selling colors. Crescent Colours has added Garden Days colors to their line of floss, including ladybug, grasshopper, and Caterpillar. Dede’s Needleworks has introduced four new threads: FireFly a wired thread for couching (think 3-D), Glitzy, a super-shiny gold thread for 18 mesh or higher, Super-Twist,semi-twinkle in 67 colors, and Prisms, a clear opalescent. She will soon be distributing Treenway’s Fine Silk Cord in 100 colors. Finishing: Have you ever thought about making a bellpull but hesitated because you didn’t like the hardware? Rosewood Manor has come out with lovely turned wool rods in 7 colors and two lengths (6 and 8 inches). They can also be ordered with cords. Designing Women has photo and scrapbook albums with oval or
One thing you can often say about Victorian art is that it tends to be elaborate. Star took her charming Berlinwork motifs and added to them this glorious folded ribbon border. Now you can make up the motifs into a very simple cushion by outlining each block with a line or two to Tent Stitch in a contrasting color, but if you really want a showpiece, go for this ribbon. You can see that she has isolated each motif with an are of the background color and that the border in in one of the accent colors in the design. You can find links to all the smaller motifs in these posts: Part 1 Part 2 Part
Gay Ann Rogers has a dozen suggestions for improving your stitch tension on her blog. They’re great ideas. If you are new to needlepoint and your stitches look uneven, remember that consistent tension in needlepoint takes awhile to achieve. The best thing I ever did to improve my tension was to stitch during my commute. This is not something you should go out of your way to do, but if you can it’s wonderful. Why did this work so well? One big problem with tension is that you make adjustments as you stitch so not every stitch is the same. Hence, they look uneven. You probably aren’t even aware that you make the changes, but your stitching shows it. Until you learn how to make those adjustments so every stitch looks the same, you haven’t achieved fluent stitching. The bus (or train or subway or car) moves constantly, so your
I’ve been thinking about the canvases in my stash and, when I do that, inevitably I think about how others might stitch them and how I would stitch them. Also inevitably this brings to mind all the things that might go wrong when you buy a stitch guide that has already been written. In my stitch guides I work hard to address many of these problems. 1. No diagrams or all the diagrams in one place. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like having too many papers around, needing a book and the stitch guide, or flipping through pages. If I need both guide and book because the guide doesn’t have diagrams, I’ll toss the guide and just use the book. If I need to flip through pages I won’t. 2. Threads that aren’t around anymore. I have a huge stash, but I don’t like it when I
Originally posted 2008-09-14 05:35:10. Republished by Blog Post PromoterBarbara has posted the eighth block on this sampler. It’s Interlocking Gobelin, one of my favorite stitches. If you want to see the entire series of posts together, check here. I’m also happy to report that even though I didn’t cut my canvas big enough to do her entire plan (it’s pictured in this post). With some fudging, I’m only going to be one set of blocks short, so this is good. A second post, has information about when you can use these stitches in your own needlepoint
Recently I have gotten several questions about what to do when the canvas is just too small. For one reason or another you want the stitching to be bigger but the unworked margins won’t do. Although it’s pretty picky, there is a way to add to your canvas as long as you have unworked edges. Best of all the result is seamless. Here’s what to do: Cut a piece of canvas, the same mesh as your original, 2″ bigger on all sides than the size of the new size piece. Cut a hole out of the middle about 2-5 threads bigger on all sides than the already stitched area of the original piece. Put the original piece on top of the new canvas, with the holes of the unworked margins of that piece, lining up exactly with the holes of the new piece. You’ll know this is right if you
Originally posted 2009-04-06 06:03:32. Republished by Blog Post PromoterWhen I got up yesterday morning, I faced a charming dilemma, I was Sunday, my day to stitch for myself. And I thought I’d get plenty of time to stitch. So which should I choose? Should I be “good” and work on the vintage In Good Company mini-sock I started before I moved? Should I get some paper off my desk and work on the ANG Stitch of the Month kimono? Or should I start Patt and Lee Designs’ Scrap Bag Star which arrived this week and which I pulled some threads for Thursday? I opted for the mini-sock since it’s been languishing the longest. But events, in the form of lots of traffic and unpacking, kept me from stitching all day. But what do you do, finish the old, work on the mystery or start a new project
Originally posted 2008-12-01 09:47:13. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI’m a happier camper than usual these days and I can actually find my thread and it’s all because the stash which isn’t packed away is now all on one floor and mostly in one room. This is thanks to my DH deciding to work at home four days a week instead of only two. That meant he needs an office and the only choice was my eldest’s, now empty, room. But it had my thread stash in it. So the day we moved his stuff upstairs and cleared off his desk here, we moved my stuff downstairs. Now, in the den, we have my desk, computer, and printer. Along with, on his desk and shelves, most of my thread. The books that aren’t packed away are on the shelves. The rest of the thread, my stretcher bars, and my canvases are
Originally posted 2009-06-16 05:41:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter The big news at TNNA is that Lee Needle Arts will be closing after, I think, 40 years in business. I wanted to alert you guys because this company is one of my favorites. not only for their lovely canvases, but also for their great leather accessories. LNA really pioneered the use of high quality leather goods as a base for needlepoint. They make bags and many accessories. I’ve used them often to make items for myself and as gifts. I’ve made so many luggage tags, using them to hold Bargello (like the one pictured above), or an initial done in shaded metallics for my daughter (in Needlepointers several years ago, I’ll look into reprinting it for you). My purse mirror and my checkbook are from them. I ordered a purse this week. But long before you might have heard of
Kreinik‘s threads are so popular with stitchers (and many other people) and the free pattern section of their website has a ton of wonderful patterns on it for you to use to explore their threads. The index page (the link above), organizes the patterns by category, with some patterns highlighted each month. Needlepoint has its own section, as does Plastic Canvas. When you click on a category, you go to a summery pages (or the first of several) that show a thumbnail of each project. Click on the “more info” link below the picture and you’ll go to the page for the project. These will have a larger picture, a material list, and instructions. At the bottom of the page there are instructions for printing the project out. Grear Sruff!
Originally posted 2008-11-11 06:41:20. Republished by Blog Post Promoter I just wanted to share with you my most recent completed project. It’s a little stitch sampler based on the quilt block Attic Windows. All the stitches share a common theme, in this case, they all have metallic accents. It’s the first of a series. I can’t reveal how they are going to be used yet (I will as soon as I can) but I thought it was so cute I wanted to share it with you
DMC’s blog recently had posts for this lovely contemporary flower design. Designed to be a “next step” project for beginning stitches, but lovely enough to appeal to everyone, this project has five different stitches in it. For many people needlework supplies can be hard to find. This project uses DMC’s perle cotton, floss and their lovely multicolored perle cotton, Color Variations, with Memory Thread outlining the petals. These supplies you’ll be able to find at craft stores as well as needlework shops. I love the way Color Variations is used to such great effect. You find it in the accents on the petals, the flower center, and in the glorious background. It’s big and bold so there is plenty of space to practice each of the stitches, which is wonderful for mastery. You’ll also learn some new techniques as well. Here is a summary of the posts on the project: