charts Archive

Originally posted 2011-05-10 07:21:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter This charming whole stitch African Animals Sampler of was Friday’s Freebie from DMC. The picture shows its stitched on 14 count Aida, but it would be wonderful stitched on needlepoint canvas. Stitch it in a single color in a hand-dyed thread for a great rustic look. Even better, pick out a lovely color of canvas (maybe one of the hand-dyed or Nature’s Palette painted ones) and then stitch it in a darker or brighter hand-dye in the same color. Don’t want to do a sampler? Consider repeating the animals as a wide border, or even stitching the animals singly as ornaments. Thanks to DMC for providing this to us!

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Samplers and quotes are a continual attraction to stitchers of all kinds. From magnets which declare whether the dishes are “clean” or “dirty” to elegantly bordered and framed sayings, the combination of words and stitches allows almost anyone to become a designer. Today I will discuss choosing an appropriate quote, picking a style of alphabet, spacing and choice of a border. With these tools, you can make your own quotable quotes in needlepoint. Choosing a Quote When doing a quote in needlework, you need to be aware of the space each letter will take up and the effect this will have on the size of the finished piece. Ideally a quote for needlepoint should be short. Quotes for cross stitch can be longer because you can use Backstitched letters to put more letters on each line. The quote should also be something which breaks into more or less even lines.

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Originally posted 2010-02-08 07:39:32. Republished by Blog Post PromoterOver the weekend Denise at Craft Gossip published a post of free needlepoint designs. You know I’m crazy about her round-ups of free projects, which she publishes often. Usually needlepoint charts are listed among the other charts, so this is a rare opportunity to indulge in the wonderful talent and generosity out there. There are also lots of whole stitch cross stitch charts (which can be stitched as is in needlepoint). I’m particularly fond of the mosaic motif in the previous post. But there are tons of great ideas in that post (A is for Apple, that great rooster) and in the Valentine’s motifs, she’s been posting all week. If you’re in need of a little pick-me-up, especially in light of the recent snow storm, take a look and give yourself a present. In fact, I’m going off to print a bunch

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Originally posted 2004-03-17 09:00:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Nancy Spies, Arelate Studio, $30, ISBN 0-971860-0-3 There is a tremendous richness in medieval art which has been waiting for a book like this. “Wyverns” takes medieval creatures (imaginary and real), people, letters and patterns and charts them for all kinds of needleworkers. The book contains hundreds of easy-to-see charts, done in black, white and gray. Some of the design are very small; like the badger adapted from a Norman 11th Century embroidery, which is only 19 stitches high. Others, like the Castle from a 15th Century book found in France, are quite large, 89 stitches across. The patterns are classified according to type. Each section begins with a quote about needlework from an historic source. The charts are nicely spaced on the pages, with quotes and pictures of stitched examples interspersed. Under each chart is the overall stitch count and

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Originally posted 2009-12-14 17:44:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter While Judaism has a long tradition of fine needlework, it’s not often I find great Judaic patterns available free on the Web. Thanks two Denise over at Craft Gossip for writing about this wonderful Torah scroll in its case on Craft Stew. I can see it made fancy by using two shades of gold metallic for the edges, Very Velvet in a textured stitch for the scroll case, and maybe Whipped Chain Stitch for the letters. Such a delightful piece!

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Originally posted 2010-08-23 07:10:52. Republished by Blog Post PromoterDenise over at Craft Gossip is the most wonderful source of alerts for free patterns for all kinds of needlework. Over the weekend she posted lots of great free cross stitch patterns. There were three I want to single out for you to give you some ideas of new things to look for when looking for needlepoint. I was really struck by the peacefulness of the seascape pictured above from French site, Les grilles de Thiarlou. Just using whole stitches and a variety of colors, you get a real sense of movement in the sea. That’s an idea you could bring to other needlepoint easily. Think how cool a background or sky could be if you used a similar method. Piet Mondrian’s graphic design is so iconic, it’s inspired all kinds of things. But it’s also an amazing basis for a cool

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Originally posted 2009-09-18 07:02:22. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThanks to the folks at CRAFT magazine, I recently learned about this marvelous site, PatternMakers’ Charts, that provides, free of charge, charts from vintage needlework books. The one that really intrigued me was the set of Cyrillic alphabets. This is the alphabet used in Russia and in some countries in Eastern Europe. Because it’s based on the Greek alphabet, you could also use these alphabets for Sorority and Fraternity items. They are from a Russian book and there are six alphabets, including two script ones. Many alphabets from Sanjou books are also available. These French needlework books are quite popular and are listed by number. There are also reproductions of Sanjou charts for many other motifs as well. From these you could design your own charming sampler or even stitch one of theirs (I’m particularly fond of the one with the donkey

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Originally posted 2009-08-20 06:36:20. Republished by Blog Post Promoter The next two borders in the needlepoint reproduction of the Bath Mosaic combine Tent Stitch and Backstitch. Each will be shown as a straight border and then as the corner. The first border is made up of Backstitched squares with Tent Stitch squares in three colors of silk inside them. Remember: blue squares – blue Needlepoint Inc 325, red squares – terra cotta Splendor S925, green squares – gray Splendor S920. Being the border 3 threads rom the previous border. The terra cotta and gray stitches form “L’s” in one corner of the square while the blue is in the other corner. This means that at the corners, the blue squares will meet up on only one side. The corner chart, above, shows the placement of the border in relation to the previous border. The next border (the fifth counting from

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Lately I’ve been seeing the topic of pixelated pictures come up in so many different areas. First there was the movie Wreck-it Ralph, which celebrates the pixelated look of old-style video games. Then I found this delightful set of pixelated letters on Pinterest, pictured below. That all got me thinking but it was topped off by a recent post of DMC’s blog interviewing a cross stitcher who makes pixelated images. I also have a delightful Japanese book of small pixelated pictures. It’s was used as the basis of today’s free project. Any pixelated image is easy to convert to needlepoint because the image is broken into squares. Look at the image below, look familiar? It looks just like a whole stitch chart. That’s the secret to converting the pixel image to needlepoint. Make every square on the chart a different stitch. Want to make something small? Make each stitch a

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Originally posted 2010-05-23 07:02:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Roses have pretty much stalked my life. This is not a bad thing since they are my favorite flower. First there was my dad, a teller of tall tales. He had everyone convinced that a fenced-in corner of our backyard had a lovely rose garden. The only ones really there were the climbing one over the entry trellis and the three hybrid teas outside the fence. Second was my MIL (mother-in-law) who loved roses but lived with wilderness on three sides of her house. Still she coaxed her roses to perfect blooms. Except for the deer. She would watch and wait for the perfect morning of plump jut-about-to-bloom. Apparently so did the deer, and they would bite the buds off the night before she was ready to pick them. So when I started a garden what did I grow? Roses, most

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Originally posted 2010-11-05 07:17:25. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThere’s a big list of plastic canvas patterns, over 125, available from Craft Stew. The list has been collected from all over the Internet, and all are free. They are listed by name according to categories. Click on the name to go to the site with instructions. Many of the patterns say “link” after them and, as near as I can tell these go to pictures of the project on freepatterns.com. The pictures aren’t linked to instructions, so I’m figuring you need to go to their homepage to find out how to get the information. Thanks and a tip of the hat to Denise at Craft Gossip

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Originally posted 2008-08-15 06:59:03. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThe Needlepoint Belt Series Ann Cady Scott, self-pubished, 2003, $65 I have to say the I REALLY wish this book had more information. Needlepoint belts remain a popular item and a book covering them would be really welcome. There are several issues regarding needlepoint belts which need to be covered but aren’t. The introduction is very short and, I’m afraid, gives me little help in the questions most stitchers will have when they want to make a belt. Some of these things, for example, how do I know how wide the belt should be, could be answered with a phrase (measure another belt). Others, like adding rows for finishing, could simply have a range of numbers. I like that the book has so many charts of different motifs to put into a belt, but I’d really like to learn how to put

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Originally posted 2009-10-24 07:41:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Talk about cross pollination, the idea for CyberPointers new book (now available to order as a download or CD) was to make needlepoint ornaments inspired by classic quilt blocks. This needlepoint quilt block inspired a quilt! Peg Dunayer designed this block. In the instructions she says “This pattern is a representation of the quilt pattern, Log Cabin. By using the same thread for the entire piece, an amazing effect is achieved: the overall appearance is that of a randomly pieced scrap quilt.” Her version of the block is pictured above. I stitched the second model of the block, using a different color of Watercolours and found the same thing. My version is pictured above. The interaction of the colors is both unplanned and very exciting. Peg thought so too and decided to make a quilt inspired by her needlepoint. She says

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Originally posted 2010-05-04 07:18:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter At the moment I’m mostly free from consume lust. There aren’t many things I want but can’t have. The iPhone is one of them. Not that AT&T works as a cellphone on Mare Island (it doesn’t) or that my life is such that I wouldn’t need one if it did. But I still want one. Australian needlepoint and cross stitch designer Happy Threads has published a whole stitch chart (suitable for cross stitch or needlepoint) of the iPhone screen. I could always stitch that and pretend

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Originally posted 2010-08-09 07:10:17. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Star has done it again with this delightful free pattern for a scissors case. Besides the great design, you’ll love her instructions for how to scale the design to fit your scissors

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