about needlepoint Archive

Originally posted 2009-11-23 07:01:57. Republished by Blog Post PromoterAbout a month before Christmas is not the best time to start thinking about making Christmas gifts. But, judging from my email, many of you are procrastinators, just like me. I went into my usual panic (even though I’m in remarkably good shape at the moment) and got thinking about what to look for to make needlepoint into gifts. In no particular order, here are some ideas: needlepoint bookends Get a set of inexpensive metal bookends and some 14 mesh plastic canvas. Stitch the canvas to be about 1″ bigger than the bookend on the sides and top. Make two of these. Cut two more pieces the same size, but don’t stitch them. Spray paint the bookends another color if desired. Stitch one stitched and one unstitched piece of canvas together and slip the bookend in. Photo Albums Look for albums with

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Today’s guest post, from Quail Run in Scottsdale, is full of wonderful tips for stitching with silk. I love these tips because they are designed to help avoid snagging the silk. ?Silk is beautiful and it’s one of the strongest threads to stitch with, however it can wear with abrasion. Here are 6 tips on avoiding those so called “fuzzes”. Anyone else have suggested tips? Anyone currently working with silk? Use a needle one size larger. This allows the silk to slide through the hole cleanly. Never lay silk on the canvas. Stroke with a laying tool. Avoid dragging silk across the canvas. Touch as little as possible, rough hands can cause abrasions. Separate strands before stitching. Use a laying tool so all the strands lie side by side. Thanks for letting me share these great tips!

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I’m working on a project and decided I’d try some new stitches fro Stitch INs & OUTs. Two in fact. The first one went very well, it was easy to stitch and if I hadn’t been diverted by watching Mad Men on OnDemand there would have been no mistakes. But then I started the other stitch. I studied the diagram carefully and started near the top of the area. I screwed up on the second unit and had to cut it out. The second time I started I managed to stitch two rows. They looked fine. The start of the third row looked fine too, but soon I ran into trouble. The accent stitches, done in a second color, were lined up incorrectly, so I knew the main units were placed wrong. I had suspected it because this unit isn’t supposed to end the same way for every row. I

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If you stitch Basketweave, you probably recite “Firemen go up stairs and down poles” to keep track of the direction of the rows. Doing this results in stitching that has the woven back that gives the stitch it’s name, below. Stitch two rows in the same direction next to each other and you get ridges in your needlepoint. But what happens when you stitch Skip Tent? All your stitches are on either stairs or poles but your rows go up and down. If only every other diagonal row is stitched, don’t worry about the direction of your rows. The open canvas means you don’t have two adjacent rows going the same direction. Some techniques, such as David’s Stucco Stitch start with Skip Tent but add a second color in the open rows. Stitch as you normally would, up one row and down the next and you’ll get diagonal ridges all

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Originally posted 2009-03-08 08:22:30. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThe major task in front of me today for studio organization is starting to sort the books. Two of the four bookshelves have been made and I need to start filling the shelves. Before we moved me books had seriously overflowed the shelves I had, so I’m REALLY hoping that these shelves will be enough. But the question for me is how can I organize the books to be grouped so I can find things. In most of the house I have books living in what I can “happy anarchy,” that is with no organization at all. Sometimes I think my DH would like more order, but just getting books up is hard enough, sorting them is worse. There is no doubt that if your books are organized you can find things faster and you are less likely to buy the same

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As much as I love borders on needlepoint, I tend to choose those that do not require counting of any kind, such as using Upright Gobelin. Why? I’m never confident it will fit. Another way many people are counting challenged is knowing whether a stitch pattern or stitch will have three repeats. Knitters have this problem as well. But they have a clever (and free) tool to help them. We can use it too. Enter the stitch Pattern Calculator from Laylock Knitwear Design. Enter is the size of your stitch and the size of the area and it will figure our for you the number of repeats. To use it for borders, count the length of the border and use that number. To use it to see if a stitch fits, run it several times with length and width of area. For the stitch to fit there should be three

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Originally posted 2010-10-03 07:24:52. Republished by Blog Post PromoterBrenda and Cheryl are the delightful folks behind the newsletter and website, Needlepoint for Fun. In their most recent newsletter they shared some great tips for improving your tension when stitching. Brenda Stimpson wrote the article and has allowed me to post it here as a guest post. Creating an even stitch tension can be one of the most difficult things to achieve in needlepoint. I am stitching a piece right now and there is ONE STITCH – that’s right, ONE offending stitch – in the middle of my beautiful pillow canvas, that is off-tension. It’s all I can see when I look at my canvas. This one stitch that sits up a little bit from the rest might as well be waving a flag. Remember when you were a teenager and you looked in the mirror and all you saw was

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I’ll admit it, every time I stitch a background and it ends up matching, I’m both surprised and delighted. It’s not that they never match all the way around, usually they do. Often enough, they haven’t matched and those stick in my craw and make me anxious. You might have this problem too. I’ve come up with some tips for making needlepoint backgrounds easier and I want to share them with you. Begin by Looking Does your piece have lots of small areas? Is there lots of background? Canvases with lots of fiddly bits, such as the one pictured here, really benefit from stitching the background first. You will be able to see the holes to count more easily. When there is lots of background, stitch around the focal point enough to establish the stitch and enough to be sure it will match. You’ll have less background left at the

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Anita, a reader asked: “The first and only big needlepoint canvas that I did, I think I did wrong so I am tying to get good directions now to do this one right! I am going to start a 12×12″ canvas that is on stretcher bars now. Do I want to do all the small “detail” work first? Or can I stitch it row by row starting at the top? Which is easier or recommended? I think I have read that the “picture” needs to be done first! And then fill in the background? Why is this? Or am I imagining all of this and it doesn’t really matter??” ********** When you are Starting Needlepoint Stitching these kinds of questions are common, they aren’t helped by the sketchy instructions included in most kits. Although the kind of thread you’ve using can have a big effect on this, in general you

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Do you ever avoid using a stitch because you hate to compensate it? I do and Herringbone Stitch is one of the ones I avoid. In Joni Stevenson’s marvelous blog post on the topic, you’ll learn so much, with this post centering on the difficulties Herringbone can cause and how to solve them. I’m excited to try her suggestions

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Originally posted 2009-08-10 06:41:27. Republished by Blog Post Promoter“What’s your poison?” It’s an old-fashioned way to ask what you’re drinking. Last night, we took my youngest and her boyfriend out to dinner to celebrate her 21st birthday. To a restaurant that serves mixed drinks (relatively rare in Napa Valley). For each of us our “poison” is different. As stitchers, we have different “poisons” as well. One person might like Charted Canvas. Another might prefer line-drawn, a third might be addicted to printed canvas. Or you might like hand-painted canvas. In case you hadn’t noticed, I like it all and that brings me to the point. No matter what kind of needlepoint project or canvas you buy it should be of good quality. So ask yourself these questions: If there are instructions are they clear and complete enough that you can stitch the project? If there are letters or numbers on

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Originally posted 2007-12-02 15:32:43. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI hope my previous two posts have gotten you excited about exploring the world of diaper patterns. As promised, I’ve searched the Web to bring together some additional resources about them. Diapers in Needlework (instruction) My friend, Judy Harper, loves diaper patterns and has a lovely post about them on her blog. Best of all it shows two wonderful designs. I have the egg one in my stash, but haven’t stitched it yet. On the ANG site, there is a two-part article on diaper patterns. Read Part 1 here. And Part 2 here. Ann Strite-Krutz has a wonderful sampler available to order for teaching you about diapers. Here are picutres of several stitchers work from an EGA class, Old Staffordshire, which showcases diaper patterns. Diapers in Other Media (inspriation) Artlandia has pictures of three diaper patterns. Google Books has the book Pattern

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Brenda asked me recently about several books, wanting to know which I thought were the best needlepoint background books. Here’s what I told her: I can’t speak to Tony’s Back to Basics DVD because I haven’t seen it, although my general feeling is that the DVD format is less useful as a format than a book or ebook would be. To look at stitches you’d have to put it into your TV or computer. For me, that would be a deal breaker, I have all the other books and just looked at them again. My top choice would be A Background Stitch Reference Book. It’s a great book with lots & lots of creative background ideas. None of them seem particularly difficult, so it’s great no matter your skill level. The diagrams are clear and the suggestions for threads, use and variations are good. The one downside is a lack

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Originally posted 2011-03-01 07:36:34. Republished by Blog Post PromoterSusan Sturgeon Roberts, self-published, 2008, $9. This little comb-bound book is a collection of questions and answers about needlepoint. Without a Table of Contents it can be hard to find what you need to know, but there is plenty of useful information here, especially for the beginning stitcher. The questions are printed in bold with the answers after them. Often they have illustrations or photos accompanying them. Without organization, the questions and answers seem random, so you will have to browse to find the items of most interest to you. There is some organization, so several questions about canvas are grouped together, but they come between two questions about using older threads and three questions about painted canvases. And some additional questions about canvas occur later in the book. While I realize that Sturgeon is a fine stitcher, she speaks almost entirely

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Today’s guest post is from Theresa Swiecicki, owner of Homestead Needle Arts in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Yes, it’s that dirty word. How many of you have tossed that “F” word around in your mind? “I can’t start another project,” you whine to yourself. “I have to FINISH some!” I recently read an enlightening article on Knitting Daily where the author enjoined us to NOT feel guilty about having tons of projects going. When I change the word knitting to needlepoint, she essentially said just what I feel. Don’t feel guilty about starting a new project! Keep yourself going creatively with new ideas, new experiences, new threads and new stitches! You’ll be re-energized and continue to love your hobby. Don’t let it become a chore AND don’t feel guilty if you no longer love an older project. If it sits for a few years and no longer calls to you, consider

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