I’m not much of a Halloween person but I just love the vintage Halloween decoration from the 20′s and 30′s. Gail Hendrix of Squiggee Designs has just introduced a flock of them (one of them is pictured here) to her wholesale line. Pop over to her recent blog post to see pictures of several of them. I could seriously get into this
Monthly Archive:: September 2011
Originally posted 2008-11-02 05:51:31. Republished by Blog Post PromoterDiane, who blogs and podcasts at CraftyPodposted a wonderful entry about plastic canvas yesterday. Like me, she sees great possibilities in this medium. Yesterday’s post has a wonderful picture of a box she made from 14 count PC and pearl cotton. On Craft Stylish, she has a complete tutorial on how to make it. I think you’ll agree this is great needlepoint
Sometimes I feel as if I’m surrounded by bad news. There are health problems, money problems, job problems, no job problems. And that’s just my friends and family. If I look outside of myself the Post Office is going broke, we heading into another recession (did we ever leave the first), we’re going into election season (I hate political commercials), and baseball season (and the gentle background to my stitching) is ending. All in all, I feel as if we all need a mood lightener and one that won’t rely on the Post Office or make me go out and buy things I don’t need. So I’m debuting the Stash Busters Needlepoint Club. It’s a one-year club that will begin November 1, 2011 and run for one year. Each month you’ll get a new project designed to use up thread in your stash. In each packet you’ll get the pattern,
Originally posted 2006-08-18 07:23:18. Republished by Blog Post PromoterSummer Louise Truswell, self-published, 1999-2005. Before Summer Truswell retired from active designing she collected her various finishing techniques and essays about needlework and published this book. In addition she spiced the book with 11 designs and tons of photos. Several of the subjects covered and illustrated, show great techniques for needlepoint, such as using scroll vars or attaching beads. While aimed primarily at folks who stitch on fabric, many of the finishing ideas and projects will work for needlepoint. The photos are exact and cover each step of the design. The book also includes blank pages for notes and two pages of stitch diagrams
Originally posted 2008-05-20 03:20:14. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI don’t know if you read Craft magazine, but you should. It’s a quarterly magazine about making stuff which is fresh, fun, and endlessly creative. I always find exciting, interesting, and inspiring projects, artists, and ideas in it. I want recommend the current issue to you especially. You’ll know it, it’s one the newsstands now and has a pair of Converse high tops with knitted tops on them on the cover. I often get questions about how to convert a picture into needlepoint and often wonder how to do this so it looks good and look like needlepoint, not a needlepoint of a picture. The current issue of Craft has a step-by-step tutorial on how to do this using Photoshop. The example takes a photo of a pigeon in flight, shows you pictures throughout the process and has a photo of the
Earlier this week I was finishing up a guide for a relatively new needlepointer. Often when you begin to stitch things seem so confusing — there are so many threads and stitches — how do I know what to pick? You also might think that stitch guides are only written for people more advanced that you and that they will use techniques that are too hard and terms that you don’t understand. That’s why I love to write guides for beginning stitchers — they cut through all the noise to give you something that will not only make you a lovely piece of needlepoint, but one that will help you on your future pieces. How are my guides special for beginners? Meet you where you are? Only know one or a few stitches? I’ll help you add stitches that build on what you know Worried about threads that might be
I get asked this question often. For many of use knitting stores are closer to home than a needlepoint shop and the prices and large size of skeins of knitting yarn make them very attractive to stitchers. Today I’ll show you some examples, both good and bad of knitting yarns and explain why they work or don’t work for needlepoint. Many needlepoint threads are actually relabeled and dyed yarns used for knitting or crochet. In terms of packaging and marketing there are a couple of differences to keep in mind. Yarns for knitting come in much larger packages than the exact same yarn when it’s packaged for needlepoint, so when you use them you’ll end up with lots, so they tend to work better for backgrounds. Second, knitting is a fashion industry, needlepoint is an heirloom craft. This means that color selection in knitting yarns is smaller and changes with
Originally posted 2009-12-12 07:39:59. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Jeanne over at Just String has completed a delightful Kathy Schenkel ornament. It’s done in Bargello needlepoint with a delightful poinsettia interior and gold textured stitch top. Best of all, she has published the stitch guide on her blog for us all to enjoy. If you want to get the canvas yourself, the design number is CO222, and it is the last item on this page at Kathy’s site
Originally posted 2009-11-12 17:56:20. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI love that Jane in Chilly Hollow has been talking about scale in backgrounds on her blog. And I just adore the Noh mask she’s blog stitching. She picked a great background, from Needlepoint Now. When I was reading about it, I was hoping she’d show us how to do it, because I LOVE it! And she did, in an outstanding post. Learn how to do Alternating Cashmere Pairs with wonderful close-up pictures of every step of the process, done with thin threads on black plastic canvas so the stitches are so easy to see. I’m sitting here thinking of a piece where I can use it
Last week Marni Jameson of the Orlando Sentinel posted this lovely article about needlepoint. Go read it, I’ll wait. She said some wonderful things that really spoke to my heart, but I want to talk about one of her recommendations: “For every high-tech gadget in your home, have a low-tech one.” Maybe it’s more a product of upbringing, but this is something I do. My mom’s an artist (and I have more of her watercolors than anyone else), my grandmother was a seamstress, knitter, and inveterate crafter (I still have ornaments she made 40 years ago). My mother-in-law, though not an artist, had many artists as friends and students and she bought their work. An then I needlepoint. Throughout my house there are paintings, sculptures, needlepoint, hand-thrown pottery, and lots of other low-tech. I simply love the mark of people’s hands and talents on the things they make. Sitting here
Originally posted 2009-04-23 06:12:00. Republished by Blog Post PromoterToday they are going to put hardwood in the room across the hall from my studio, so I’m mostly sitting and stitching at the other end of the house and hoping it will be cool enough that I can open the windows to get rid of the glue smell. But this is also giving me some time to reflect. I watch What Not to Wear quite often and I am always surprised and delighted by how changing your clothes can change your attitude. I’m living proof that changing your decorating can do that too. Since I moved to California in 1980, until last fall, my stash (threads, books & canvas) has never all been in the same room. Sometimes it’s been close, but never all there and all accessible. Thanks to my DH moving his office back home and our moving to
Needles are the stuff of our lives as stitchers and unless we have problems we don’t think about it much. Some people swear by particular brands of needles, others need gold needles because steel needles turn black when they use them (it’s a skin chemistry thing). But the needle you use makes far more of a difference than you thought. IN one of the best articles I’ve ever read on needles, Alice Hall of BeStitched blogs about needles, their sizes, their effect on threads and thread tension and lots more in her recent blog post. Check it out, her tips will improve your stitching right away
Originally posted 2007-12-13 16:32:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter This piece is an intersection between a classic Bargello pattern and Scrap Bag Needlepoint. The outline, flames, and white transition stitches are consistent throughout. Then the units are filled in with a huge variety of blue threads from my scrap bag and stash. By keeping some elements consistent throughout you get unity in the design and give it some structure. This acts as the skeleton for the piece. Without some unifying factors, needlepoint can look confused. In Bargello there are many unfiying factors. The outline of the pattern is one. I’ve even made effective Bargello pieces where that was the only unifying factor. In Line Bargello patterns, the line itself unifies the design. Another unifying factor in many Bargello pieces is the stitch itself. Since they are all the same length, they provide consistency throughout. The flames pattern provides a built-in
Two designers of hand-painted canvas needlepoint have pages up with their newest designs. I’m particularly delighted with the new Melissa Shirley designs because the have such an integrated (and lovely fall palette. There is a series of Christmas crackers in gold and white that I wouldn’t just get out for Christmas, along with another series of Halloween crackers. For Debbie Mumm lovers, there is a trick or treat series from her in several sizes that includes a fantastic Halloween house. In the style of her many Victorian and Edwardian figures, there is a Series of Fairy Tale Witches. And adding to her whimsical flowers there are some canvases in great Halloween colors. She has also added many canvases to her Seaside series, including three new starfish. But what I like best in this series is the fish. The colors are just what you would find in old color plates in
Originally posted 2009-12-04 06:59:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Yesterday we began to stitch the colonial brick house and talked about the windows and brick. Today we’ll discuss the door and put the whole thing together. The door is the focal point of these simple houses. In brick houses it is usually painted black with brass hardware. The height of the door is determined by height of the lower windows. it will be the same, but will go to the ground. The width is determined by whether there are small windows on either side of the door, called sidelights. I decided against sidelights, but if you chose to have them, you would make them the same height and divide them with the same stitch used to divide the panes on the windows. As is the case with the windows, the white frame is an important part of the door. Colonial