Originally posted 2008-05-07 07:06:42. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Anne Stradal of ABS Designs has worked her magic again on these two decidedly different Christmas designs. First we have Santa, the morning after, otherwise known as Christmas Day. Have you ever thought what he might be doing while we are all enjoying opening our presents and gorging on the candy in our stockings. Now we know, after a very busy night he’s taken off his boots, put on a warm sweater and is enjoying a rest. And what about Mrs. Claus? We see her the night before, busily trying to finish up one more gift. I personally think it’s for one of the elves. Anne designed them and stitched them and I’m just the scribe. They should be available in the next month or so from Anne’s site
hand-painted canvas Archive
A few months ago I bought this lovely HP Designs canvas of two cats. I bought it because the looks on their faces reminds me of my two cats, Darcy and Bingley. There’s only one problem — both my cats are black. You have probably encountered this problem in your stitching. The look of the canvas is right but the colors are wrong. You need to find a way of adapting the needlepoint canvas to you. In order to do this you will need a way to take notes and either acrylic paints and brushes or pens made for marking on fabric. This process can’t be done in a hurry and you will need at least 24 hours after you have made your changes to let the canvas dry before starting to stitch. Before getting down to the changes, look at your canvas. Are there areas that will not need
Originally posted 2008-12-23 06:17:10. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Has this ever happened to you? The canvas for the perfect gift hasn’t come in yet. Or you are still stitching and the Christmas finishing deadline was back in the Fall. Not that this hasn’t happened many times before to me, but last year I actually had a good idea for what to do about it. Yes, I’ve wrapped up and given the unfinished canvas, but somehow that never seems special enough. And I feel guilty exposing my work in progress to others. Last year, very close to Christmas I found this delightful Botswana angel from Painted Pony. My DH and I love the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books and he has wanted to visit Botswana for decades. So I thought this would be perfect for him and ordered it right away. But what to do, it couldn’t get her
Spare a thought for the terrible plight of needlepoint bloggers and shopowners. We see all the new products, sometimes even weeks before they are released anyplace else. But there is no way that we can stitch everything we see that we would like. New needlepoint products get me excited, so I want to share them with you. Elizabeth Bradley has some exciting news. First off she has a new series of small kits for kids. The colors are light and cheerful. They are 6″ square and come complete with canvas, threads, needle and chart card. They have also expanded their line of tapestry wool to include some brighter and more modern colors. THere are now 363 colors available in 10-yard cards and 60-yard hanks. DebBee’s Designs has added a Gold design to their popular Glitz & Glamour line. It’s laid out to look like stacked gold ingots. It uses Kreinik

I saw the vintage pincushion base from Sudberry House and I thought pincushion. Cheryl Schaeffer saw this same piece and thought “Chair!” The chair you see is just one of five delightful miniature needlepoint chairs she’s making. This one is the Beach Chair. There is also a Halloween Chair, a Pink & Blue Chair, Santa’s Chair, and, yet-to-be-completed, The Wild Chair. Each of the chairs uses Sudberry’s pincushion as the base and all can be used as pincushions. In the current issue of Needlepoint Now you can get the stitch guide for Santa’s Chair
Originally posted 2009-08-28 07:39:50. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI’ve come across some delightful new needlepoint products for you to look for at your local shop. Here’s a round-up of some of them. Painted Canvas CBK Needlepoint Collections has added a new artist, Designs by Karen. These designs feature animals against light backgrounds on 18 mesh. Lucinda Gregory Rice is doing custom portraits of your pet in hand-painted canvas. The size of the design is 12″ x 16″. She is also doing a series of monthly Bargello ornament leaflets, printed on cardstock and three-hole punched. Raymond Crawford has a charming set of destinations canvases. They are 9″ x 3″ and spell out the place with reminders of what makes it great. Projects & Kits River Silks has a stunning new Kit to Go featuring a pansies design by Leigh Richardson (Designs by Leigh). The kit has everything you need to stitch
Originally posted 2007-03-15 07:52:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Lose your heart but not your scissors with this Hearts of Gold Scissors Case! I’m a big fan of Whimsy & grace’s stitcher’s accessories and I’ve created Needlepoint Stitch Guides for many of them, But this one is the one I like best. I started stitching it Monday and in three days (about six hours of stitching), I’m almost done with the front. This design is really witty. It’s called Hearts of Gold and, as you can see, it has golden hearts in many of the patches. There is the large solid heart near the bottom, the over all interlocking heart design to the right, and the tile-like pattern of four hearts near the top center. One the back there are several more hearts. Another great aspect of this design is the way it combines many different metallic threads into a
Originally posted 2010-05-30 07:04:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter This bold needlepoint Bargello cell phone case is designed to hook on your belt. It’s the free pattern in the quarterly newsletter from Ziva Needlepoint. Ziva’s designs have a clean contemporary style and are geometrics based on historic design periods. They design needlepoint accessories for the home and for you and I’m bowled over by how wonderful the designs are. In addition to the lovely designs on the site, you will also find information about finishing many of the items. The designs come as hand-painted canvas with a guide to the amounts and colors of wool needed, a needle, and instructions for finishing the project. There is also a free bracelet design, Anatolie, done in Basketweave available from the first newsletter. A big shout out to Denise from Craft Gossip and Althea from Bargello Needlepoint for pointing this out to me
Originally posted 2010-07-14 07:55:40. Republished by Blog Post Promoter I’m excited to have my friend Sandy Grossman-Morris doing posts today and tomorrow. They are the start of a series we will be doing together about custom needlepoint. Hi to everyone who’s Nuts About Needlepoint!! For those of you who don’t know me yet, please let me introduce myself. I’m Sandy Grossman-Morris, a designer from (Hotter than Heck) Brentwood in Northern California. I know this because our air conditioner decided to retire last night. Luckily, I’m married to Bob the Builder, who is well aware that I am only comfortable in a room that is cold enough to hang meat in safely. But, I digress….I’m really here to spread a little Bloggy Inspiration…Creating Custom Needlepoint Canvases. First of all, I’d like to thank Janet for inviting me to spend this time with all of you. So, pour yourself a cup of
Originally posted 2010-06-16 07:35:01. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Finishing Items I am just crazy about this chic self-finishing clutch from Timeless Totes. This is their first self-finished item. It comes in four colors (red, burgundy, blue and black). Lee’s Needle Arts has added leather Kindle covers to their self-finishing line. There are also new photo boxes and albums. I’m excited about the albums, because, although sometimes you can find albums that have openings deep enough to hold needlepoint, most of the time the albums you find won’t work Threads Crescent Colors has added new shades to both their perle cottons and silks. Valdani has added pure silk perle to their line-up of threads. This is great because silk perle is a wonderful thread to use. Rainbow Gallery has new colors in Very Velvet, Silk Lamé, Fuzzy Stuff, and Wispers, along with new colors in some other threads. They have
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
Raymond Crawford will have many new designs out but one will be a lovely tribute to New York City. You’ll see iconic signs and symbols of New York including the Brooklyn Bridge and a sign for the Apollo Theater all done up in an apple outline.. It’s a clever & different canvas. His other new canvases include more new eggs, a clever gnome, and a great snowman. One of the big hits of TNNA markets is called Sample It! Held on Friday nights, shops can purchase limited amounts of special items and packages, many put together exclusively for this event. It’s also the only place at this market where you can take actual product home, so these items will be showing up in your shops right away. Accoutrement Designs, the makers of those great magnets & fobs has some special collections available at this event. These collections include some new
Originally posted 2009-06-19 05:44:04. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI am just crazy in love with the new Swedish Dynasty ornaments from Leigh Designs. They are so much fun! I wrote about them last month, but I took a look at the whole group and I just had to show them to you. They all are done on dark green canvas, so you don’t have to stitch the background. Their shapes make for generous ornaments. Each one in the series is named for a king or queen of Sweden. What really delights me about them is the way Leigh has really captured the look of Swedish folk art. There are some which are lovely florals (Bernadotte and Wilhamena), a great paisley (Johan), two based on Swedish Dala animals (Sigvard and Kajsa), two multiple animals (Gustaf and Lennart), and several others. They should be arriving in stores soon, so look out for
With TNNA only ten days away, many designers are showing off their newest products on their website. Starting today and until the week after the show, I’ll be having articles about what’s newest. Barbara Bergsten has lots of new designs out. You probably have seen the charming stitches Santas which will appear at their first show. In addition to this, Barabara has a whole slew of sorority items, including shifts and pumpkins. There are also pink & green pumpkins, more shifts, and charming monograms on pink gingham. Pocket Full of Stitches is showing off new canvases by Ruth Schmuff. There is a big series of different fairy tale scenes including ones from Snow White, Pinocchio, and Red Riding Hood. In addition there are new shoppers canvases and a charming European silhouette canvas. Canvas Art by Barbi is a relatively new company I first saw at Phoenix last year. She has
It my be cold, or gloomy, or both where you are but your spirits will brighten immediately when you read about all the wonderful new needlepoint products coming out in the next month or two. Many shops attend the TNNA Market at the beginning of February so now is a perfect time to order items of interest from them so that you can be among the first to get them. Hand-painted Canvas Susan Roberts has a new 30″ tall nutcracker. This one, Herr Dresselmeyer, is perfect for ballet or nutcracker lovers. He’s on 13-mesh canvas. She also has a lovely sunface design I could easily see on a porch swing. Kelly Clark has added a Halloween series to her line of pears. She also has new stockings & stocking toppers. My favorite of these is a topper with ornaments in girly colors. Finally she has a new full-color catalog, with
