halloween Archive

Small needlepoint projects are always popular, but a bigger problem is figuring out what to do with them. If you stitch holiday-themed pieces you can, at least, put many of them out as decorations. But what do you do when the tree (or trees) are dripping with needlepoint, you have stockings for everyone, but you still love those small projects. The folks at the Florida shop, Needle Nicely, have been working on a marvelous idea; they have been stitching starfish to make a garland.They are not using painted canvases to do it but drawing the shape on canvas and then filling it with an interesting stitch. Even if you use another shape, you could easily adopt this idea as the basis of your own garland.Just find a shape and fill it. Recently they put up a post that is of tremendous help in planning this kind of project. It discusses

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Originally posted 2008-12-03 07:13:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter The main project I’ve been working on of late is my Halloween Crzy Pl8 from Sandy Grossman-Morris. And I’m delighted with the progress. So I thought I’d share it with you. I’ve put in a bit more of the sky in T Stitch using blue Kreinik flourescent. The tree is stitched in Basketweave and Reverse Basketweave using Water n’Ice. I wanted the bat to look velvety and so the one which is complete is stitched in Basketweave using Petite Very Velvet. The gray outline of the mountains is stitched in Diagonal Mosaic using gray silk. Finally I’ve started to add the crosses to the Criss-cross Hungarian, so that will glow in the dark as well. Today I’m going to do enough sky to add the state name, do that and work on adding the crosses to the orange. After that I’m

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Originally posted 2010-07-06 06:28:53. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThere’s no doubt about it, stitchers love stitch guides. Our appetite for them is almost insatiable. Talk to any designer and they will tell you shopowners ask about stitch guides all the time. If a designer has none, they wonder why not. If a designer has some, they want more. And we, as stitchers want them and want them at an affordable price. Today marks the opening of my new on-line shop, Needlepoint Stitch Guides. Here you will find stitch guides for many popular designers, available both as PDFs (for you to print) or as printed guides). You can order directly from the shop and have your guides as soon as the same day. Talk about immediate stitchy gratification. It’s the largest on-line shop dedicated to needlepoint stitch guides and related products. There’s lots more to the site. You’ll find reference information

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Originally posted 2010-10-04 07:07:12. Republished by Blog Post PromoterSome fun reading for you for a Monday morning. First off, two delightful interviews of needlepoint designers. The Scarlet Thread has an interview of Debbie Rowley of DebBee’s Designs. Then The Point of It All has an interview of Barbara Bergsten. At the recent St. Charles market, several designers introduced new canvases. Melissa Shirley has added Debbie Mumm‘s popular designs to her line. Leigh Designs has put out the drop-dead elegant Ladies of the Night Collection. Barbara Bergsten has blogged about her new designs. Gail Hendrix has shown off several of her cute Halloween designs, with embellishments included on her Squigeeland blog. And if you feel like stitching, take a look at Riitenhouse Needlepoint’s newest stitch of the week, Plaited Square, a delightful stitch. The recent hot weather in California has left me too tired to do much stitching, so I’m going

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Originally posted 2007-06-27 07:58:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter In my house, my kids (now 23, 22, and 19) anticipate Halloween pretty much beginning November 2. They plan their costumes with great care and take delight in the comments of others. So, were they younger, they would go crazy for our new stitch guide from Melissa Shirley Designs. It’s a fantastic way to prepare for Halloween and have a wonderful decoration as well. The backdrop has “Happy Halloween,” a spooky night sky, the fence, flowers, and some Halloween creatures. Thirteen pumpkins with faces from happy to scarey are added, one each day, in the 13 days leading up to Halloween. The secret for putting it all together? The backdrop is finished over a sheet of metal and each of the pumpkins has a magnet on the back. Isn’t that just too cool? I love the way bits of metal sparkle

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Originally posted 2010-06-18 07:48:05. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Clara Wells Needlepoint has an interesting approach to designing her canvases, She has seven different “collections”, each using a similar print, available in several different forms to make needlepoint fashion accessories. The Koi Collection bag is pictured above, other piece ins this collection include a belt, mule, clutch band, and cuff. The other collections include similar items. This a such a cool way to get a coordinated look. Robbyn’s Nest Designs has a neat series of ornament-size Mandalas in lot of colors. These geometric pieces would make great needlepoint. The Artist’s Collection has new witches from Mile High Princess and HeartStrings as well as new trees from SHEAR Creations. Patti Mann has an adorable baby sampler. It takes the iconic “Hello My Name Is . . .” name tag, put it in pink or blue and adds the baby’s information. Too

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Needle Delights has announced the newest in their Double Delights series: Tangello. The two colors it features are orange and yellow. It’s a delightful sunny geometric in counted canvas. Julie Mar has a set of wildlife babies mini-socks or 3″ ornaments. There are a bunny, fawn, owlet, bear, and raccoon in the series. Mill Hill’s kits, which use beads, floss, and perforated paper, have come out with nativity figures of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. They are in a lovely realistic style. Voila is adding more designs to the Koaster Kits sets of self-finishing coasters. DebBee’s Designs has added a new, huge needle minder to their Arkansas Cares line. It’s called the Ginormous Magnet and is strong enough to hold scissors or a laying tool along with your needle. Trenway Silks keeps adding new colors to their lines of thread and silk ribbon. There are now 109 colors in the line.

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Originally posted 2009-10-03 07:16:48. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Its no secret that I like black cats. I’ve owned three of them (that’s Dot in the picture above), and I have many black cat canvases stitched and unstitched. The nice thing about black cats and needlepoint is that since they are associated with Halloween, it’s easy to find them. The bad thing is that often you have to change the background. So I thought I’d share with you some black cat canvases to stitch. My friend Marianne has a charming quote from Colette about cats as one of her stitch & Frame pieces. She’s stitched the model (pictured above) as a black cat. Thinking along Art Nouveau lines, Art Stitch has needlepoint version of this elegant cat as well as the famous poster from the Chat Noir in Paris. And what about this charming oriental cat from HP Designs? You’ll

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Jack o’Lanterns, bats, kids in costumes and . . . black cats; all these are things we associate with Halloween. That, I’m afraid can pose a big problem for people like me who own (and love) black cats. If I had a dime for every black cat canvas that has a Halloween theme, I’d be able to buy a great big canvas. If I had a dime for every black cat canvas that had a Christmas theme, I couldn’t even buy a cup of cheap coffee. I’ve done them both. As a result I have to personalize the canvases I find for the ornaments I’d like for our trees. Here are the steps I use Make sure the canvas you pick has a cat that isn’t too scary-looking (screaching and overly arched backs are out) Make sure your canvas has a minimum of other Halloween-themed items. Some of these can

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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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Originally posted 2009-12-06 07:37:11. Republished by Blog Post PromoterEarlier this week I spent a happy morning poking around Cheryl Fall’s Needlepoint site at About.com. One of the things I love about the site is that, as a professional designer, Cheryl has a wealth of patterns she is sharing with us, for free. Before we explore some of the great patterns there, she has a page describing how to use the patterns. This is particularly helpful because it includes instructions on how to print and enlarge the patterns. Her patterns are designed for beginning and internediate stitchers. The index page for them is organized by category. Scrap Bag projects are among my favorites and French Braid is a delightful quilt-inspired piece that could be done as a row or two for napkin rings or expanded to make a pillow top. There are also larger projects, such as Asian Maple (a favorite).

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Originally posted 2008-10-16 08:10:26. Republished by Blog Post PromoterTake a look at the front page of Sandy Grossman-Morris’s site. Notice anything familiar? Yep, that my license plate there, front and center. Thanks to Sandy for highlighting it

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I’m not much of a Halloween person but I just love the vintage Halloween decoration from the 20′s and 30′s. Gail Hendrix of Squiggee Designs has just introduced a flock of them (one of them is pictured here) to her wholesale line. Pop over to her recent blog post to see pictures of several of them. I could seriously get into this

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Two designers of hand-painted canvas needlepoint have pages up with their newest designs. I’m particularly delighted with the new Melissa Shirley designs because the have such an integrated (and lovely fall palette. There is a series of Christmas crackers in gold and white that I wouldn’t just get out for Christmas, along with another series of Halloween crackers. For Debbie Mumm lovers, there is a trick or treat series from her in several sizes that includes a fantastic Halloween house. In the style of her many Victorian and Edwardian figures, there is a Series of Fairy Tale Witches. And adding to her whimsical flowers there are some canvases in great Halloween colors. She has also added many canvases to her Seaside series, including three new starfish. But what I like best in this series is the fish. The colors are just what you would find in old color plates in

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Gloriana has announced their newest colors in silks: Thistle Orange, Thistle Purple, Jersey Shore and Jubie’s Pink. There are also three new colors in Florimell, her hand-dyed Au Ver a Soie: Jubie’s Pink, Holiday Green, and Emerald Green. Dinky Dyes has announced lots of new threads as well. There are 6 new silks: 187 Halloween, 188 Toni’s Texas T, 189 Evergreen, 190 Quicksilver, 191 Stringy Bark and 192 Mocha Mauve. There are also 5 new ribbons both 4mm and 7mm: 67 Jacob’s Ladder, 118 Ironbark, 187 Halloween, 190 Quicksilver and 192 Mocha Mauve. Finally, there are four new silk perles in three different sizes: 174 Persian Jade, 175 Dragon Fruit, 182 Dusty Rose and 183 Blue Ice. Rainbow Gallery has also brought out a new thread – a thinner size of Silk Lamé. There are 26 colors out. Color numbers match those of Silk Lamé but the prefix is SP

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