Originally posted 2007-02-22 06:51:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Imagine a sleekly elegant pendant hanging from a sterling choker or leather cord. Sound good? Now imagine that pendant being made from needlepoint. Sound too good to be true? It was until late last year, when FAS-Stitch came on the scene. They sell stunning needlepoint pendants, frame, earring, and cufflinks, put into a brushed aluminum frames. You can buy these pieces from FAS-Stitch in one of three ways: 1. Finishing only: You buy your own canvas and buy the finishing from them. Once your piece is stitched, put it into the postage-paid envelope and send it to them. Two weeks later your finished piece is returned in a lovely gift box. 2. Finishing and kit: This has the finishing with a computer-printed canvas and threads for stitching it. These kits also include a second outlined canvas. The finishing for the first
Monthly Archive:: May 2012
June is a big month for mew needlepoint products. With the TNNA Summer Market happening later this month, there will be lots more coming out. Happily for us, many companies have announced new products, I’d like to share with you. As usual the announcements are grouped into three parts: Canvases, Kits & Charts, Threads, and Accessories & Tools. Canvases, Kits & Charts Needle Delights has added two new charts to accompany her popular Rio chart, making the “Rio Trio. The new charts are Samba and Carnival (which comes out in the fall). Lee has come out with a set of four square or rectangle patchwork design by Judith Rudnick Crane. The pillows are large and on 10 mesh. This is great for people looking for a quick project or for those who prefer working on larger mesh. Jean Smith has a set of three canvases that focus on the centers
Originally posted 2010-05-27 07:26:57. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Recently Pam asked: How do I estimate the amount of yarn needed for each color in a project? There isn’t a hard and fast rule for this because the amount you need per square inch varies with the mesh size, thread, and stitch. But this method works to figure out how much yarn you use per square inch for any thread and any project. Begin by marking on a canvas the same mesh size a 1 inch square block. So, for example if you were working on 14 mesh, this would be a 14 x 14 block. Now take the thread you will be using, any color will do, and cut it into a bunch (5 or so) of 18″ lengths. With those threads, start to stitch the square in the stitch you will be using. Stitch the whole 1″ square
I bought this little cross designed by Designing Women awhile ago on eBay (it’s still available through CanvasConnection who currently sells these designs). It’s N1209, Flower Cross and is in the first row here. It’s very pretty but as I ran through my usual ideas for finishing but they wouldn’t work. It’s just a bit too long to fit into a standard size frame. There isn’t enough canvas to make it a true diamond. I didn’t want as much background as a rectangle would require. So I decided on an irregular diamond. It’s easy to draw onto canvas, but would be very hard to stitch freehand. All you need is a ruler or stiff cardboard and an extra fine marker made for marking fabric (I used a Pigma micron). Here’s how: Decide how many threads out you want the background to be and make a mark at those intersections for
Originally posted 2008-10-13 07:58:07. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI just took this little test about color discrimination. I know colors pretty well, but this one is a challenge. You are given three sets of hues, moving from one color to the next. You drag and drop the intermediate blocks to have them change gradually from the color on the left to the color on the right. There are lots of them and it’s pretty hard to distinguish between then at times, but still tons of fun. When you are done, you can have the test scored and compare how you did with others of your age and gender who took the test. You may think you are pretty good at telling the difference between colors, but this test uses what are probably the hardest colors to distinguish. Using Mary Shipp’s terms from Color for Needlework, these are complementary tones. They
I have this little star sitting on my desk right now. It uses a simple star outline (like this one) and I thread I hadn’t used (Oriental Linen from The Thread Gatherer). Making a simple design like this is a great way to test out a thread. But it’s also a fantastic way to create some simple stitch variations. You can make this kind of a variation even if you are a beginning stitcher. Just separate the units of lines of a stitch by a single row of threads. This process is called “exploding” a stitch and any stitch that has clear lines or units can be exploded. If you have seen stitches that are framed by rows of Tent Stitches, those are exploded stitches with the open lines filled in. Or, vice versa, a stitch such as Jacquard or Famed Scotch, is exploded when those rows of Tent Stitch
Originally posted 2007-08-22 06:07:53. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI’m excited to welcome designer Anne Stradal to our designer profile series. If you haven’t seen Anne’s delightful work, visit her site at http://www.absdesignsonline.com/. You will be blown away by her lovely work and her great stitching. Several of her canvases are now on my To Do list. How did you start designing? >>I began designing cylindrical ornaments in 1994, inspired by the family’s nutcracker collection. The canvases available at that time were rather static, with each figure’s arms hanging straight down its sides. By designing my own “little people,” I was able to imbue them with their own personalities and move their arms in different positions. Stitching them became more addictive than eating potato chips! What inspires you to do a new design? >>Family collections– including nutcrackers, lighthouses and penguins, to name just a few—have inspired a lot of my designs.
Because of some legislation in California, Amazon cancelled all contracts with Associates in California. I had to close my Amazon store as a result. But that’s all done now and I finally got around to creating my new Amazon store. You can visit it through this link and always through the first link in the store on the masthead. I’m going to be adding products as quickly as I can
Originally posted 2009-06-14 06:03:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter You may be stuck at home, in front of the computer. It may be rainy or cold. Or you may have worked hard on the yard or house all day and are in need of a little vacation. Whatever the reason, I’m here to help with a little tour of a completely charming (and growing) idea in the American Midwest. Farmers have huge quilts painted on their barns, just like the one you see above. Painting on barns is not something new. In Pennsylvania, where I grew up, hex signs are often painted on barns. Another common item is barn advertising, like the Mail Pouch tobacco signs. What started as a tribute to a woman’s quilting mother, has now grown to include over 900 barns throughout the Midwest. The idea is to take a quilt or quilt block and paint it
I know very accomplished needlepointers who avoid Straight Stitches for two reasons. One of these is the difficulties of having Straight and Diagonal Stitches next to each other. I feel often as if no matter what I do, it’s going to look bad. I’m afraid that, all too often, I’m right. Joni Stevenson has a wonderful in-depth article on this subject one her blog and has come up with some really delightful solutions. I”m going to try these myself on a current project
Originally posted 2009-07-07 06:42:12. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Yesterday Liz Morrow had a great post on her blog LizArt, about a piece she made that was an adaptation of a fractal she had seen in a picture. I found it tremendously inspiring and this is a rick source of ideas for your own needlepoint. Let’sd begin by describing what a fractal, is. Quite simply a fractal is a mathematical shape which can be split up so that each smaller part is a repeat of the larger part. Sounds kind of dull doesn’t it? The critical thing is that fractals are self-similar. But fractals are anything but, in fact fractals are something you see all around you, but probably never think about. Coastlines are fractals (they continue to get more irregular as you get closer and closer), tree branches are fractals, clouds,lightning, and even snowflakes are all examples of fractals.
Cross Stitch Charts can be a fertile source of needlepoint designs, especially if you know what to look for in a chart that will make it easy to translate to needlepoint (read tips on what to look for in this post). Let’s say that you’ve found the perfect chart and are ready to stitch it. But, like many things when you look at them the first time, the chart makes sense but what’s around it doesn’t. That’s where this fantastic post by Jen Funk-Weber comes in. She explains for us what the different parts of a cross stitch pattern are and how you use them to create your own stitching. While some of it isn’t helpful for us as needelpointers, there is tons of great information here for anyone wanting to try needlepointing a Cross Stitch pattern or trying their hand at counted canvas
Originally posted 2010-04-17 07:41:26. Republished by Blog Post Promoter With more and more of us brown bagging it to work and many of us going for reusable containers, we face an unpleasant choice. We can bring our dirty dishes home and wash them there, or we can wash them at work. I don’t know about you, but I have never worked at a place that had really great facilities for washing up. My friend Kristen at Craft Leftovers has come up with this great plastic canvas washing up kit that solves this problem beautifully and economically. Tucked inside the 3-D plastic canvas box, you’ll find a hand-knitted dishcloth and a bottle of dishwashing liquid. It’s automatically color-coordinated because you use the same yarn to knit the dishcloth and make the box. Knitting dishcloths is an easy project, one well within the skills of even a beginning knitter. They could also
I’m more than reasonably addicted to Dover’s wonderful clip art series. And I have been for years. I have dozens of them on my bookshelf and many are seriously beaten up with dog-eared pages and PostIt notes everywhere. If you like to design your own needlepoint projects, but, like me, you stink at drawing, look to these for inspiration. Many of the clip art and stained glass books are in their Pictoral Archive series which means they can be freely used, even in commercial designs (with some limitations there). This makes me so excited about the contest Dover recently announced for craft items using Dover’s clip art books. The winning project gets $100 of Dover Books and two runners-up get $50 each. Read all about it here. The deadline is July 15. Just to give you some ideas, I’m going to be starting a new project next week. It’s going
Originally posted 2004-03-17 14:54:39. Republished by Blog Post PromoterMargaret Major, Guild of Master Craftsman (distributed by Sterling), $19.95, ISBN 1-86108-341-6 In the foreword to the book, the editor of Doll’s House magazine enthuses about Margaret Major’s lovely miniature embroidered quilts. From the wonderful selection of projects in this book, I can easily understand why. Embroidery in 1/12 scale has a delicacy which makes these projects absolutely charming. When a simple single patch block is done on linen, the finished result is only 1″ square. Even if you aren’t a dollhouse enthusiast, I can easily see these projects as insets for Treasure Boxes, fridge magnets, or Christmas ornaments. The opening chapters of the book cover general guidelines. The introduction gives and overview of the book including information about the project ratings. The first chapter, Getting Started, covers fabric, thread, mounting, stitches and a great section on stitching the piece and reading