Originally posted 2008-09-13 06:46:25. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThe success of the recent Stitch in Public Day has gotten me thinking about ways to promote needlework. Here are some ideas, which are easy to do: Make sure your guild’s meeting are listed on the events page in your local papers and at your meeting location Make an 8.5″x11″ poster, so anyone can print it, and hang it on any community event board you know of, such as in the library Does a library, civic building, or school have free exhibit space for non-profits, have your chapter put one together. Stitch in Public yourself. I have a friend who does her needlepoint on the ferry on her way to work. She has gotten several other commuters interested in needlepoint. Make a bookmark about your meetings and put it in local crafts and needlework shops. Maybe expand this and go to knitting
Monthly Archive:: March 2011
Using your image, a copier, and your knowledge of the finished size, make your chosen image the right size for your finished item. When doing this remember to leave a margin on all sides, the design will look better, and be sure to leave enough room for the other elements in your finished piece. Once you have a possible good size, put it under your needlepoint canvas to be sure there is space for the details. Like what you see? Using a extra fine marker made for fabric, trace the item onto your canvas. Once it is traced, darken the lines. Next I charted “ti esti” and added a question mark. I think it will fit nicely below the animal, starting near the back foot. I’ll count to be sure there is enough room and color the intersections to match the chart. Above the tail I want to put a
My youngest is graduating from college this May and I want to make her an ornament. I’m not happy with the “normal” graduation ornaments I see, I’d like to make her something unique. Sometimes when we want to make a needlepoint present for someone, there just aren’t commercial designs out there. At that point we need to create our own, which actually isn’t as hard as you might think. Over the next few weeks I’ll show you how the ornament is progressing in a set of posts designed to help you make your own designs. What Do I Make? Before you start this process you need to do some thinking. First you need to decide what item you will be making. That will give you an overall size and also clue you into how much detail you can include. If it will go into something for self-finishing, look for those
Originally posted 2009-10-03 08:17:45. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Do you have a canvas that confuses you, that you don’t know how to stitch? Or is it just an area that keeps you from finishing that piece you love? Helping you find the perfect stitch and thread for your canvas is both my passion and my specialty. That’s why I offer stitch guide services at two levels. The Stitch Guide Service will provide you a complete customized stitch guide for your canvas. It’s like having a teacher right there by your side, helping you stitch the canvas. Unlike many stitch guides, mine have diagrams right there in the text, information so you know how to use the stitches and techniques on other canvases, and are customized to your likes, ideas, and stitching level. Price depends on the canvas and it’s complexity. You can fill out the form on the linked
Last week The Washington Post had an short article about needlepoint. There wasn’t much to it. Great for The Point of It All, that got mentioned, but not good for the MANY other shops in the area that were ignored, or for the Woodlawn Exhibit, or (I could go on and on). Having worked as a journalist I am somewhat sympathetic, it could have been done in a hurry, it needed to be a specific length, and a dozen other reasons why it was so bad. If any publicity is good publicity, then we should not be unhappy. But we can, and should, change people’s misconceptions about needlepoint by showing them it is so much more than the article. And the paper is helping us by having an open slideshow of our favorite pieces of needlework. Jane in Chilly Hollow has added some and so have I and many others.
Originally posted 2008-02-04 08:02:29. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Yesterday was the Super Bowl and it was a game I actually wanted to watch. Then there was House (great episode), then there was the Jane Austen biopic (not very accurate) on PBS. This made for a seven hour stitching binge. The Gay Ann Rogers classroom on SNS (Shared Needle Society) is a free group of stitchers in a Yahoo group who work on Gay’s lovely projects. They had a Stitch-in for the Super Bowl, we were all encouraged to stitch. I decided to take the day and work on the charming Hawaiian Quilt ornament from Keri Designs. Stressless stitching, it’s done in Basketweave with T Stitch for the background. I only used threads which I hadn’t put away, back into the stash. The blossoms are a great coral shade of Spring II and I used almost all of it. The
Sorry folks, I lost track of the date so I’m late posting. One update, Organized Expressions is still in business, not out of business as I said in my post yesterday. The post has been corrected. Do you have problems with the kinks in Neon Rays? I know I do. Mostly I just dampen, run it through my fingers and pull a bit. This helps, but doesn’t get rid of them all. So I just live with what’s left. But Needlepoint Study Hall has an amazing method (with a video) for getting rid of the kinks. Check it out!
Originally posted 2008-04-29 07:56:57. Republished by Blog Post PromoterSomeone asked me, after seeing last week’s post about the lighthouse, if I could explain the stitch I used for the water. I call it Open Water Stitchand it is a slight variation of a stitch David McCaskill used for an ANG Stitch of the Month. To make the stitch look more wavy, I only did the first step, the oblique stitches. I think it emphasizes the wobbly nature of the ocean. In the diagram above, you can see how it is constructed. It’s made up of rows of oblique stitches, alternating the direction of the slant in each row. I found it difficult to remember where to start each stitch when I began, but I got into a rhythm soon enough. I stitched it in horizontal rows. I think my choice of thread, Ty-Di’s Cotton Plus, which is a highly textured
I used to keep track of my stash with Organized Expressions, but since I quit using it (The are still in business) I haven’t had a good way to do this. But, happily enough, there is a brand new program out, The Stash Can, designed to help you do this. It works in Windows XP and 7 (so it’s no help to me as a Mac person) and comes pre-loaded with over 6,000 items. These include threads, buttons, beads, fabrics, charts, and kits. Although more oriented in what’s pre-loaded to cross stitchers, each item has a type category, so it would be really easy to add needlepoint categories such as kits, counted canvas, painted canvas, or blank canvas. The screen for each item has lots of useful stuff including places for notes. This feature looks really great and very useful. One of the things I didn’t like about Organized Expressions
Originally posted 2009-03-28 05:27:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter My friend Patt, of Patt and Lee Designs, wrote me late Thursday about her newest pieces, scrap bag stars. I didn’t get to look at them until yesterday but I loved them so much I ordered all of them and their stitch guides immediately. I want to share them with you. The first, and most elaborate, one is pictured above. There are eight stitches and 40 colors in this design. That’s a great way to use up your odds and ends of thread. This is the second star. It too uses 40 colors and has seven stitches, four of them new to this design. This one, the third, uses a smaller color palette with 8 colors and 7 stitches. This color combination, which I always think of as “Meadow” after the Watercolour thread, is such a pretty, peaceful one. And there
Melissa Shirley Designs has a treat for all of us. She has added to her New Designs page a sneak peek at her new designs she will be showing for the first time at the TNNA Market in June. Although June will be their first market, they are available to order from your LNS now. Her you can see several groups of products: Deep in the Heart of Texas is a charming series of blue, white and yellow designs that include Texas-themed hearts, cowboy boots, and quilt blocks Fresh features charming pastels and includes birth announcements, florals, and, my favorite, a Noah’s Ark picture. Fourth of July has some patriotic angels and a whole bunch of decorative words in red, white, and blue. Add to this a whole bunch of new stitch guides and there’s lots of great things coming from this popular designer
Originally posted 2007-09-01 06:55:39. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThroughout September, I will be visiting needlework-related blogs, on-line magazines, and shops, to visit, answer questions, and provide articles. This is all part of the celebration of my books, Needlepoint Trade Secrets. I hope you’ll drop by to visit on one of these dates: September 6 Needlepoint Canvas Shop blog visit September 9 (noon Pacific) Needleart Nut blog visit September 13 Virtual Q&A at
I just found out about lots of great new needlepoint products I wanted to share with you. Charted Needlepoint DeBee’s Design has more charts available in the Glitz & Glamour and Diamond Delights series. Harlequin Opal is done on black canvas and features a rainbow of brights. Diamond Delights 8 features the colors of the Southwest in large motifs in defined area against a colored and shadesd background. Brenda E. Kocher has a delightful small project to learn Or Nue, a technique of shaded gold well-suited to canvas. The project features a tiny egg done in this technique on a decorative background. Cleopatra’s Eyes is designed by Kurdy Biggs and is based on kaleidescope images. It combines several innovative stitches and thread. You can also enhance the design with beads and crystals. It’s a very complex piece. Canvases CBK Needlepoint Collection has two new brick covers from Designs by Karen,
Originally posted 2009-04-08 06:23:25. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Another three cats and the top row is complete and I’v begun the second row in this charming needlepoint. These three cats are a bit restful, having lots of Tent Stitch. Areas of Tent Stitch are important on a canvas because they give your eye a chance to organize the stitches and threads around them. The pink and golden brown cat is another version of what I call “overshot,” a needlepoint pattern which reflects the complex woven pattern of overshot coverlets. These weaving patterns use two colors of thread on the loom and produce complex patterns. The larger brown areas are forms of Smyrna Cross. If the area is square, the stitch is Smyrna. If it’s rectangular the horizontal bar of the Upright Cross is omitted. The narrow lines are all Continental. All the pink is stitched in Continental as well,
March is National Crafts Month and since I’m taking today off to spend with my best friend from high school, I want you to help me with this post. In the comments share a needlepoint memory with me. I have one to share about Maribeth. We met shortly after she moved in to my neighborhood. She was walking her poodle and I was taking a walk, we had both stopped to listen to another neighbor and both thought what that person was saying was silly. We became friends immediately and have been that way for nearly 40 years. I already was obsessed with needlepoint at the time and talked Maribeth into trying it. She decided to do a piano bench cover using a wedding kneeler chart from The New York Times Book of Needlepoint. I did manage to talk her out of that huge project, and instead we settled on