Nuts about Needlepoint » alphabets

Painted Canvas Goodies from TNNA

Janet Perry — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:38:59 +0000

There is always so much more great stuff at TNNA that I can’t cover everything. Here’s more stuff I loved.

Tapestry Fair has some lovely geishas that have a great concept. They are seen from the back. The clothing is line drawn, so you can pick your own stitches, colors and threads, but the heads are painted. A cool basis for creativity. There are three single geishas and a piece with six.

A Collection of Designs has new mini-socks, snowmen, ornaments and, my favorite, elaborate crosses. Jean Smith had an absolutely amazing large (4 feet square) of a single flower, plus many delightful coasters that are smaller versions of her popular flowers and vegetables. These are great for giving you an assortment of her work.

At Elizabeth Turner there was a delightful Noah’s Ark mini-sock, stocking, and mitten, all with plenty of opportunity for embellishments and fancy stitching. They also had a great set of coasters with fancy purses on them as well as glasses cases with many purses as well. Sew Much Fun had another charming variation for those who don’t go in for stockings, oven mitts in large and mini sizes. There were three designs in each size with my favorite being Piece, Hope, Love with cake on the mini and pie on the large.

Birds of a Feather had delightful owls, nativity figures in their whimsical style as individual ornaments, and three sampler designed by artist Nancy Davis. They also had a delightfully different “Hunting Wild Boar” canvas. Cooper Oaks had small pieces of Susan Wallace Barnes artwork in ornament rounds and small (6″ square) pictures.

Looking at the beachy theme of those canvases, my favorite beach pieces were from j.child. They had extremely clever beach stockings, ornaments, and mini socks in lots of designs. Probably my favorites were the beachy ornaments stocking and the mini sock with bright Christmas lights along a driftwood fence.

I simply adored the resin boxes at Amanda Lawford. There were a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. To go along with them were clever canvases. Stitch the canvas and pop it into the box for a fast, unique gift. There I also saw a set of wonderful bird silhouettes that came with thread lists and embellishments. There is a cardinal, chickadee, dove, and blue jay.

The Point of It All had a lovely wedding ensemble that was dainty and elegant. It included votive covers that can be done with your choice of initials, a small ring bearer’s pillow, a tiny brides bag and fairy tale shoes. Making any of these would be such a treat for a wedding. JulieMar & Friends has a new snowman collection and lots of new creative Halloween pieces.

DReam HOuse had several new designers including by Georg with lovely florals. They also had new Mindy pieces and some wonderful mid-century modern pieces, including one called Falling Leaves that has a great 50′s vibe. Needledeeva has a great series of nine Christmas trees of various kinds, each decorated and with a different shape. Vicky DeAngelis did the stitch guides.

Robbyn’s Nest has a lovely series of botanically correct roses as coasters or pillows, along with four new designers eggs (think Faberge), and a set of five colorful tropical frogs. Canvas Connection is back with new Talavera and Imari designs.

I loved the initially yours series of squares from new designer Canvas Art by Barbi. Each square is divided into rough quarters with a different font of the initial with a different color background on each. They each also have a letter embellishment on them. Barbi also makes a great series of needlepoint “postcards” with many colorful heart designs.

Associated Talents has a lovely set of semi-custom script monograms in squares. You can have up to three letters in the monograms and they are available with patterned or plain backgrounds, in several colors and with plain or elaborate borders. I loved them because the script monograms make such a strong and elegant design statement just on their own.

Labors of Love has added to their clip-on line with a new 12 days of Christmas series. The thing I like best about this is that the birds in this series are compatible in size with their other birds.

Tomorrow, news about distribution of some of your favorite designers, along with more canvases. Next Friday another TNNA article with a look at new stuff from two of my favorites, Kathy Schenkel and Melissa Shirley.

Make an Initial Ornament

Janet Perry — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:36:52 +0000

Originally posted 2010-12-03 07:23:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

It’s easy to make and finish a round initial ornament such as this one.

Begin by finding a Lee Needle Arts round luggage tag. You can also use their round ornament, but I like the many colors of the tag.

You will also need:

18 mesh mono canvas
pigma marker
overdyed thread
background thread
one thin & one thick metallic to coordinate or contrast with overdye
ribbon
letter enlarged to fit 2 3/4″ circle

Begin by finding your letter, there are lots of alphabet sites out there and many books of fonts. This A is from a book called illuminated initials. I enlarged it to fit the space.

Use the template and your pen to trace both the circle and the letter centered inside it.

Use your overdye to stitch the letter in a textured stitch. I used Staggered Mosaic.

Once this is stitched, pick another stitch for the background and stitch it in your background thread. I used T Stitch and cream matte #8 metallic.

Once the background is complete, you want to accent the letter
with Whipped Backstitch and the other two metallics. These colors do not have to match, mine didn’t.

Begin by making Backstitch all around the ornament with the thicker metallic. These stitches should go over two threads and be right along the edge of the letter. The metallic I used, Kreinik #12, is very close to the green of the overdye.

Once the backstitch is complete wrap it with the thin metallic, Sparkle Braid here. Bring your needle out under a backstitch and emerge on one side, bring the needle over the first stitch and under the second, re-emerging on the first side.

Continue to wrap like this, without your needle entering the canvas until the outline is wrapped.

To end a thread, bring your needle to the back as it goes under a stitch and start the new thread in the same hole.

Trim and insert into the tag. To make it an ornament, hang it with a ribbon. Tie a knot and then a bow over it in a thin but pretty ribbon making a loop. Thread the opposite end of the loop into the hole at the top of the tag. and pull it through a bit. Bring the bow end of the loop through the loop end and pull it tight. This is called a Lark’s Head Knot and is a perfect hanger for your charming ornament.

Can You Turn Handwriting into Needlepoint?

Janet Perry — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 14:30:08 +0000

Originally posted 2010-03-02 07:57:06. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

sample of handwriting

Your handwriting is one of the most distinctive things about you. Turning a person’s handwriting into needlepoint is a lovely, but not necessarily easy, way to remember them. I got an email last week from a reader asking about this. Here’s how you do it, using a process similar to turning any font into needlepoint.

Begin by enlarging the handwriting or font to the size you want. If you are working with a person’s actual handwriting, you might look for a font which is similar. Enlarging the letters will make it easier to determine if the font or handwriting will actually work. Make your test the actual text you want to use.

Now do a little test by laying over the needlepoint canvas you want to use onto the letters. Look at it and evaluate it as needlepoint. Ask yourself some questions: is each letter you need distinct and different from the other letters? Are the thin strokes too thin to be rendered as stitches? Are there areas that will look like blobs when they are stitched?

If the answer to all of these questions is no, then you can skip immediately to putting the letters on canvas.

If the answer to any of these questions was yes, you need to do some evaluation before continuing. If the letters aren’t distinct or blobby, can you make them larger? Do this and try again? Did that solve the problem? If it did then move forward. If it did not, continue the evaluation.

Do the thin strokes disappear? Think about whether you can make them wider without making thick and thin strokes the same width. If you can’t, you should look for another font or method. A combination of Whipped Backstitch, Whipped Double Backstitch and Whipped Chain Stitch might solve this problem.

Are some of the lines dotted? You can solve this problem by manipulating stitch direction as we discussed last week, but it is good, but not necessary, to know this in advance.

If, in spite of all of this, the font still doesn’t work, you might look around for another font.

Putting the Letters on Canvas

You have letters you like, you know how they will work on canvas and you know the size they need to be. Now you are ready to transfer the design to canvas. For this you will need a permanent, waterproof or dye-based marker with a very fine point. I like to use Pigma Microns in brown because they are very fine and the brown will show through thread a little less.

Put your printed lettering under the canvas. Align the canvas so that the base of a line of letters is along one thread of canvas. If it is, tape both to the table. If it is not, you will need to be moving the canvas so that the base line will be straight. You will need to check this after each letter and adjust the canvas. That is important for goo-looking needlepoint.

If a letter is distinct and not blobby, trace it onto canvas as it is. Trace the outline of the letter first, then color in the interior.

If a letter is blobby, look to thin out the blobs by removing some stitches. Make the loop more open, collapse a crossing of lines into a thinner area. You can do this by not tracing the outlines of the blobs and then coloring intersection by intersection.

If letters aren’t distinct, think about both the handwriting and the purpose of the needlepoint. Many people’s handwriting doesn’t have distinguishable letters. If your purpose is to render the handwriting, I wouldn’t worry about this, If the purpose is to make something readable to people who don’t know the hand, then look to making alight changes in shape to make letters distinct.

While this is not the easiest process in the world, go slowly and the end result will be a unique piece of needlepoint you designed yourself.

Say it with Needlepoint

Janet Perry — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:30:06 +0000

Sayings and needlepoint just seem to go together. From a canvas with a complete sayings to one word affirmations and needlepoint names, they remain popular items for hand painted canvas needlepoint.

But what if the thing you want isn’t available?

Then you need to look no further than the three delightful series of letters from Marie Barber at Colors of Praise.

Marie has come up with the best idea. She has three series of letters, the 100 and 200 series are upper case only and the 300 series has both upper and lower case, each with a different background. YOu can see them all on her letters page.

Each letter is different and bold enough to stand out from the colorful patterned backgrounds.

Now the fun begins. You can specify the word or phrase you want and even specify the backgrounds and even the colors. Marie says “[A] customer might like the “M” in the 300 series on a 200 background and that would be indicated
LE313b (letter) on LE213(background) or LE203(lets say they need a capital C) on LE338( wants this look). Size and mesh needs to be specified and if a letter needs to be a different color that also has to be indicated upon the order.”

Because each canvas is a custom order, it can take 1-3 weeks for your LNS to get the piece, more of it’s ordered at a trade show.

Marie goes on to say “There are so many options with these letters and how to arrange the words if that is what’s being used. The words can be in a linear row or stacked upon each other for example. If it is a word, I need to know the spacing in between each letter(I normally leave 1/4″). Same for Initials, the spacing needs to be indicated( I normally leave 1″).”

Sometimes shops call to talk through the plan with Marie, other times they just leave it up to her taste. Marie has a great idea for you to plan out your order: “print out the pages from my website and cut and paste, that would give them a better idea what it might look like if they are trying to create a word.”

The picture here, taken from Marie’s site is a great example of the possibilities. While many of the letters are from the 300 Series, others, the “L” for example, combine the letter from one series with the background pattern from another and put it in a different color scheme.

I love this great idea for making fun custom needlepoint without fuss.

Celebrate – Come Stitch with Me!

Janet Perry — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:16:43 +0000

Originally posted 2008-08-14 06:32:56. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Recently I was at the Post Office and bought these Celebrate stamps. I thought they were so cute.

This inspired me to create this blog’s very first Come Stitch with Me project. The idea behind this project is that we will stitch it together, one square at a time. The colors and threads will be up to you, I’ll post instructions for each block about one every two weeks or so.

If you’re new to needlepoint, this will be a great way to learn 12 new stitches and techniques. If you have been stitching for a long time, it will be a great way to try out new color combinations and threads.

This post has the basic materials list and instructions for marking the canvas.

Next week I’ll post the first block.

To make this project you will need:

10 x 12 piece 14 mesh mono canvas
2 skeins lettering color of your choice (I’m using black Kreinik & Silk & Ivory) – if you like you can use different colors as is the case with the stamp
3-7 different background threads in the color palette of your choice
2 accent threads
1 metallic (for the star)

Using a non-xylene or dye-based permanent marker, make a grid on the canvas of 2 inch (28 threads) squares. There should be 4 rows of 3 squares.

Once you have marked the squares, make a mark at the center hole of each square as a reference.

Now mount the canvas and wait for the first block.

I’m planning an analogous color palette of peach, pink, a pale red-violet, often suffused with gold. I have done a few pieces in these colors and I love them. Once we get the new house (keep praying), my studio is going to be peachy-pink, black and white, so I’m going to put it in there.

The parts of this project will all be listed a the end of each section and all will be found under “Come Stitch with Me” in the category list. When the project is finished, it will also be available from Napa Needlepoint or your LNS as an eProject.
Here’s a rundown of the sampler so far:

African Animals Link Corrected

Janet Perry — Thu, 12 May 2011 21:50:59 +0000

The proper link for the African Animals Sampler is: http://dmc-threads.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/AfricanAlphabet.pdf. The wrong thing got poasted Related posts: African Animal Sampler — Free Design from DMC Beginning Needlepoint Sampler – Link Corrected Charming Free Folks Art Animal Charts Link Fixed to Needlearts Survey Free Designs for St. Valentine’s Day from DMC Related posts:

African Animal Sampler — Free Design from DMC

Janet Perry — Tue, 10 May 2011 14:21:13 +0000

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!

Adding Initials to your Needlepoint

Janet Perry — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:46:59 +0000

I recently got a question about where and what to use as initials for signing a needlepoint piece.

Like an artist’s signature on a painting, this will generally go in the lower right corner. If your border is wide, you should plan on putting your initials there. If it’s elaborate, you might want to think of it as a frame or matte and put your initials in the corner of the main part of the design.

Picking the font is fairly easy. You don’t need to be too fussy about picking a font, unless you want it to be an obvious part of the design. I usually use a very simple and there are tons of charted alphabets available free online. I have an alphabet chart listing on All about Needlepoint, my reference site.

Based on the elements around your signature and the letters in your initials, I figure out what size I want (usually 9 stitches or less) and then look at the alphabets that fit.

When you are talking about smaller alphabets, they probably don’t have too much detail anyway, but I would look for ones that aren’t italic, script of fancy. In other words, plain block letters.

Once you have picked out your font, you need to chart out your initials. Here you’ll have to make some choices: vertical or horizontal, in a border or not, initials touching or not. I’ve charted my initials for this post several possible ways, which do you like better?

Hebrew Alphabet – Free Pattern Alert

Janet Perry — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:46:57 +0000

If you want lettering on a piece of needlepoint, you may have a hard time finding alphabets. If you want the Latin alphabet, you’re fine. But, as I found out recently, if your want something else, think again.

And if you want Hebrew, that’s really hard. But thanks to the folks at Judaica Needlepoint, we have a selection of Renee Frank’s charming Hebrew alphabets (that’s one pictured) available for free.

There are 12 charts, each based of a different font. Some are bold, some modern, and some traditional. You’ll be able to find something for every application here.

Each can be previewed as well as downloaded which is so helpful for finding the right one.

Thanks to Renee, who blogs at Needlepoint of View for pointing this out.

Personal Needlepoint – Transferring the Design

Janet Perry — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 14:22:12 +0000

Using your image, a copier, and your knowledge of the finished size, make your chosen image the right size for your finished item.

When doing this remember to leave a margin on all sides, the design will look better, and be sure to leave enough room for the other elements in your finished piece. Once you have a possible good size, put it under your needlepoint canvas to be sure there is space for the details.

Like what you see?

Using a extra fine marker made for fabric, trace the item onto your canvas.

Once it is traced, darken the lines.

Next I charted “ti esti” and added a question mark. I think it will fit nicely below the animal, starting near the back foot. I’ll count to be sure there is enough room and color the intersections to match the chart.

Above the tail I want to put a monogram of SJC, so I’m looking at a vintage book, Needlework Monogram Unlimited by Barbara Borssuck that I have interlaced & modified (below). The year will go under it or above or below the bill.

The finished design looks like this:

Next Thursday I’ll talk about the choices I made for threads and stitches.