children’s needlepoint 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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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 2010-03-19 07:20:52. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Your little one is fascinated by your needlepoint and wants to learn how to stitch. She’s too little to handle even a beginners canvas. Those cards you stitch won’t give her a chance to do “real” needlepoint, so you have a dilemma. As you can see from the picture Sippy Cup Central came up with a wonderful idea — use fruit and vegetable bags as the basis for needlepoint. She shows you how to do it step-by-step and even shows her daughter enjoying it. I love this idea for so many reasons. First off the holes in the bags are big, much bigger even than the largest holes in plastic canvas, so even very young stitchers can try it. It’s thrifty, so you don’t need to worry if it doesn’t work out or if the child doesn’t like it. Finally, you

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Every year around this time I get obsessed with a couple of things: Making new Christmas ornaments Using up my stash This doesn’t mean needlepoint necessarily. To qualify the ornaments or projects need to be easy. They need to use up lots of thread, and, they need to be fast to make. A bonus is if they can be made with kids. This delightful project from Gingerbread Snowflakes qualifies on all counts. The yarn paintings of Mexico’s Huichol Indians are adapted to simple shapes, traced from cookie cutters and turned into ornaments. Though the pictured ornaments use very long strands of yarn, I don’t see why you couldn’t adapt them by using our already cut lengths. Once the thread (or yarn) is glued on, you could go even further and add embellishments. This is so easy to do and something that would be great to share with kids

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Originally posted 2010-09-03 07:35:26. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Robots are a ton of fun and my idea notebook has many of them cut and pasted in it, but I have mostly been disappointed in the ones I find in needlepoint. That was until I found this delightful robot from Petei. It’s one of her Petei People (504) and I stitched it as an ornament for my son. One of the things I love about her canvases is how much texture and detail you can get in such small spaces and with relatively few stitches and techniques. I have a Stitch Map now available for it giving all threads and stitches, with instruction in a compact two-page guide. It’s now available to order on my Stitch Guide site. It’s $2 for the PDF (immediate download) and $5 for it to be printed and mailed in the US (international sites have

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This delightful ornament is based on a vintage wooden ornament. It is one of three in my Vintage Kids Ornament class that is free with the purchase of the kit from Art Needlepoint. The three-lesson class is sent via email and focuses on stitches and techniques for clothing and hair. It begins July 15. On August 1, delight in this luggage tag class featuring different stitches in easy-to-useperle cotton. If you’ve been wanting to expand your knowledge of stitches, this is the class for you. As always the email class is free with the purchase of the kit from Art Needlepoint. Are you a beginning needlepointer? This whimsical cat canvas in a special size marks the Beginning Needlepoint class starting Aug 15. You’ll learn easy stitches and techniques for focal points, accents, and backgrounds, along with special touches to make your stitching sing. As always the email class is free

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Thanks to Ruth Schmuff we have a delightful sneak peek at the lovely Fairy Tale canvases coming out from EyeCandy this month. Your LNS will be able to see and order them at the TNNA show next weekend. The first one is the one I had seen, but the second (also pictured here) is my very favorite. I just love these

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I’ve always thought it’s one thing to practice stitches on pieces of doodle canvas and quite another to learn stitches on a canvas that turns into a project. I like the feeling that my practice is going towards something. That’s what I love about the Sandy Grossman-Morris canvas that is the basis of my upcoming three-lesson class beginning July 20. Mondrian Memories is a lovely glicee canvas that can be used as an iPod/iPhone case, turned into an ornament, or just framed as is. You’ll learn how to master Tent Stitch, one stitch from each of six stitch families and you will become familiar with many different types of thread. It’s a great class. The cost is $42.50 including the canvas and shipment to you inside the US. You can pay through PayPal with your PayPal account, credit card or echeck using the button below. Because canvases for the class

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From an industry publication, Creative Leisure News: “Silver Needle is a manufacturer and wholesale distributor of hand-painted needlepoint canvases based. Established in 1967, Silver Needle is the only company officially licensed to produce Beatrix Potter, Goodnight Moon, and Hadley Pottery designs in needlepoint. Offerings also include other classic and current storybook characters; 82 city, state, and country ornaments; as well as traditional designs for the home.” Effective immediately, this wonderful line of city and storybook-themed needlepoint will be sold by Colonial Needle. I should note that they are the only company licensed to produce needlepoint of many of these lines, including Babar, Paddington Bear, Beatrix Potter, and Pat the Bunny. If you are not familiar with Silver Needle’s line, take a look at their website (and drool)

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Jane’s mother stitched name canvases for her grandsons. The one pictured above is the one she made for Jane’s son Nick. His grandmother is still needlepointing (at 91!) and now that Nick is expecting a son of his own, his grandmother would like to make a similar name canvas for her great-grandson. The problem is that no one can remember the designer of the canvas. If you know, please tell me about it in the comments

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Originally posted 2009-08-04 06:42:08. Republished by Blog Post Promoter For many people the idea of stitching a needlepoint with your school logo is a compelling one. I made needlepoint ornaments for each of my kids for their high school graduations. I was disappointed I had to go with generic “graduate” pieces and didn’t have one for their school. But a new company, School Needlepoint, has come to our rescue. They will make custom needlepoint ornaments or brick covers for your school. The thing I love about them is that many of their designs use the school’s logo, in the school’s colors, so you get something which is very specific and therefore very special. Shops carry their canvases and charts for cross stitch of area schools, but you can also order on-line. The ornament pictured above is one I’m stitching. You can see the unstitched canvas on the company’s site. It’s

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Originally posted 2010-04-18 07:56:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter One of the best things about needlepoint os that you can customize your stitching to suit your tastes or the tastes of the recipient. Take this free pattern for plastic canvas blocks from Roots & Wings Co. for example. You could stitch a set to match a nursery’s decor, or one using the mom’s favorite color. There are suggestions for several options for the blocks, as well as pictures of others. You could make a color block (with each side a different color), dice blocks, a shape block (with each side a different shape), patterns, or even the traditional letters. The blocks use standard plastic canvas squares from the craft store

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Originally posted 2008-04-14 07:26:58. Republished by Blog Post PromoterRecently my daughter had an entry on her blog about buying art for kids’ rooms as a baby present. She’s right, having lovely art to look at is a wonderful thing for children. But we can go that one better, we can make lovely art for kids’ rooms. This charming design from ABS is a good case in point. The designer, Anne Stradel, both designed and stitched it, so I can’t take any credit there. I only put her stuff onto paper. But I love it. It has that vintage children’s book color and look which is one of my favorites. And it uses simple stitches and a few additional techniques to create something really special. I love the dimension which comes from adding the grass over the stitched pond. The sky is a very simple shaded Basketweave which adds so much.

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The second in Orna’s delightful series of Gatherings (group kits for needlepoint parties) is Sweet, a kit that allows six people to create delightful needlepoint stitch books. I can’t think of a better way to introduce a small group of girls to needlepoint than with this colorful project. It’s easy, fairly quick to stitch, and easily made into a custom book for each participant. The kit has two instruction pamphlets, one covering the stitch samples, the other the book assembly, six pieces of canvas, four skeins of multi-colored perle cotton, a needle, stretcher bars, and even scissors to cut the thread. In addition to this stitchy goodness are all the materials you need to create an accordion book of the samples and charts. Everything comes packed beautifully in one box. It only took me about an hour to stitch the samples and another hour to make the book. I only

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Originally posted 2009-10-19 07:26:21. Republished by Blog Post PromoterSprite Stitch is a completely delightful site working at the intersection of the video gaming world and needlework. The pixelated graphics of video games are perfectly suited to becoming the basis for needlepoint or cross stitch. In fact one of their moderators has just posted a list of Sprite Stitch projects, organized by topic. This links to patterns in the forums as well as comments and inquiries about patterns. It’s a wonderful starting point for exploration. Thanks to Denise from Craft Gossip for letting me know about this

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