Nuts about Needlepoint » bargello

brown paper packages – New Colors

Janet Perry — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:34:03 +0000

Originally posted 2010-08-12 07:09:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

I’m late in getting you the details of new colors in Silk & Ivory and Trio from brown paper packages. As you can see from the picture above, it was worth it.

The four colors on the left are four new shades in their wonderful series of “almost whites.” Petal is the palest of the Pink Cocktail family. Glacier is the extremely pale blue, and is lighter than Blue Yonder, another wonderful “almost white.” Posie, is the extremely pale violet is lighter than Phlox, a light-filled pale violet. Pearl, the final color in this group, is the lightest member of what I call the “Luxury Seafood” family of salmon, shrimp, crab, and lobster. This is my favorite color family of these threads and I’m so excited.

Why should you be excited about these colors? Just as decorators have a bazillion shades of white picking the correct extremely pale color for your background can do wonders. Just a hint of color can complement or amplify the colors in your piece. Your eyes might look at them and say “white,” but what you will think is “how wonderful that piece looks!” And all because you used an almost white for the background.

The color on the left came out earlier in the years. They are straw a pale yellow, and three new members of the “heavy metal” family, from light to dark, pewter, smoky quartz, and onyx. The other color in this family is pearl gray, one of their earliest colors.

With 224 colors in the line now, available in both threads, most of the color families now have five shades, and there are several with more. If you like Silk & Ivory for Bargello, this is wonderful news. If you haven’t tried it for Bargello, do it for your next project, it’s my favorite thread for this technique.

New ( and Inexpensive) Design from Orna Willis

Janet Perry — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:43:25 +0000

Originally posted 2011-01-16 07:22:01. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

“Lovely” this small Bargello needlepoint heart is designed in four colorways.

Orna’s models are on brightly colored canvas and are perfect for cheering up a gray day. The design is small and simple, featuring Bargello in a heart.

Best of all the design is available as a PDF for only $1.

You can buy it in Orna’s Etsy shop.

You can also get it as a kit or in a set of all four designs. When you get the kit you also get the hoop for a quick finishing job.

What a great Valentine!

Bargello Revisited — available to pre-order

Janet Perry — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:09:59 +0000

Originally posted 2008-05-06 06:15:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

If you’ve been waiting to order Bargello Revisited from Amazon, wait no longer. The link is finally up and the book is available for pre-order.

Still the fastest way to get the book is to order it from your local shop and have them order it from me directly. Any orders I receive from shops before May 20 or the day the books get here, which is later, are considered first day sales and will be autographed by me. Shops should contact me about personalizing the autographs.

No books ordered from Amazon will be autographed.

I am so excited!

Marble Waves – New Colors & Kit

Janet Perry — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:47:58 +0000

Originally posted 2008-09-17 06:47:06. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Su has a second post on Marble Waves up. It’s in a lovely soft colorway of green and eggplant. It also has a tiered border which sets off the piece nicely. This combination of colors will soon be available as kits from Su.

I was working on doing my own Marble Waves, but gave it up last night in total frustration. I don’t read charts very well (an eye problem makes it hard to count), I’m in a state of total exhaustion from getting the house ready (it went on the market yesterday, you can see it here) an I had had an immensely frustrating day, pretty much from start to finish. So when my corners wouldn’t match and I realized it was going to be a parallelogram instead of a square, I gave up.

But I love it so much I’m going to stitch it again and do it right this time.

How to Make a Bargello Luggage Rack

Janet Perry — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:37:49 +0000

Luggage straps are an excellent idea for Bargello, and you may find patterns for them in older books.

But it’s also easy to adapt an existing pattern to making luggage straps.

Probably the best way to do this is to find your pattern first. The best luggage straps I’ve seen use ribbon style Bargello lines. These pretty much go only in one direction or fall in two directions from a center point. They don’t have the ups and downs typical of many Bargello lines. Here are some stitched examples of Bargello lines:
http://bargelloneedlepoint.com/day-162-gorgeous-diagonal-bargello-line-design/
http://bargelloneedlepoint.com/day-171-stair-step-bargello-needlepoint-design/
http://bargelloneedlepoint.com/day-240-long-diagonal-curve-bargello-needlepoint-design/

I also have a couple of line patterns in my book, Bargello Revisited which is available through Amazon or directly from me.

Once you’ve found some patterns you like, the next step is to figure out how wide you want the straps to be. That, of course is going to depend on the luggage rack and how many straps you want (usually it’s three). Once you know the width and the mesh you want to use, you can figure out how many mesh the straps will need to be. You’ll also be able to figure out the length, which should be long enough to have the areas that show when the straps are wrapped around covered in stitching.

With his knowledge you should be able to center your pattern and stitch the straps.

Free Christmas Ornament Patterns on this Site

Janet Perry — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 14:56:56 +0000

Merry Christmas!

I love CHristmas ornaments and stitch them all the time. Some of that love has been reflected in the projects I’ve done for this site.

In case you are like me and want to start a new stitching project (although I’m most likely cooking not stitching), you might want to make one of these delightful little projects.

Besides these stand-alone projects, check out last year’s Learn-a-Stitch Mini-sock series, and the many Twinchy posts, there are lots more ornament ideas there.

Charming Ornament or Picture from Northern Pine

Janet Perry — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:33:19 +0000

Linda Lachance’s designs from Northern Pine are a delightful blend of Bargello and canvas stitches that are unique in charted canvas.

I also love the way she uses colored canvas as an asset in her pieces.

In the current issue of The Caron Collection’s on-line magazine, find directions for the delightful little piece pictured above. It has many of the characteristic elements of Linda’s designs: Hilton stitches, colored canvas, and clever use of Bargello.

You can also read their profile of Linda. If you want to see more Northern Pine Designs, including another free project, visit their site.

Redesigned & Updated Bargello Site

Janet Perry — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:42:29 +0000

Originally posted 2010-06-28 07:23:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

pattern from 2010 Bargello Challenge

Bargello Needlepoint has just undergone a major redesign to make it easier to find patterns and to learn about both Bargello & needlepoint. It’s a great site and you should spend plenty of time there.

This year Althea, the site’s owner, has been trying to stitch a new Bargello pattern everyday in the 2010 Bargello Challenge. With half the year gone, she has an impressive array of patterns stitched. These she has classified in useful pages, like the Bargello Diamond Designs that give a brief descrption of this type of design and then show all of the designs in this category in clickable thumbnails. Click on one and you’ll find a page with a bigger picture, information about the source and some other information about the design.

Besides this amazing resource and record of her project, there is also a store with her ebook of ornaments, links to buy printed books, fun merchandise, and several free downloads.

Two other areas of reference information classified by subject provide a comprehensive index to her blog material. They are Bargello Boot Camp and Needlepoint How-to. Both are great places for exploration.

This is one of the cleanest designed and useful needlepoint sites I’ve seen in a very long time.

Moonlight & Gold Bargello Jewel Box

Janet Perry — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 15:04:30 +0000

Originally posted 2008-02-13 06:51:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

I just finished this project for the Bargello book. It’s going to be the top of a cobalt blue Silk Dupionni jewel box from Needlepoint of Back Bay.

It’s a variation of one of my favorite techniques, single color Bargello. These are easy to do, you just use threads of varying textures in the same color. The end results are very subtle, but wonderful.The change in this one was to add accents in the bright gold. I thought that would look nicer with the cobalt of the box.

It is also, as you can see, a very small pattern. The stitches in it go over two threads instead of the usual four and the step is one thread instead of the usual two.You can do this with any Bargello pattern which has stitches the same length. Make them smaller for a pattern which is the same width (number of stitches across) but half the height (up and down). It will look so delicate.

If you want a bolder, elongated pattern, try doubling the length of the stitches and the step. Or even changing them to a six thread length with a three thread step.

Isn’t Bargello so fun? With one stitch and a simple pattern, you can get so many different looks.

The Best Four-way Bargello Ever!

Janet Perry — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:33:12 +0000

Originally posted 2009-06-05 06:34:41. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

My friend Donna posted an in-depth article on her blog, Front Range Stitcher, earlier this week with this simply amazing Four-way Bargello piece on it

The design is by Colorado needleartist/designer Toni Gerdes and it was taught at Donna’s ANG chapter.

Donna has some great instructions on how to start the design along with pictures of her project so far.
Like Donna, I have an HP lacquered box in my stash (mine’s red) and this would be perfect in it.

Four-way Bargello is something I’m not great at, but I did manage somewhat to conquer it with Pat Mazu’s lovely project from the ANG Chapter Project book, now I’m ready to try something more challenging. I think I’m going to make mine mostly in blue with bright red accents.