design Archive

Instead of buying one of these cases, why not make your own? Begin by getting a Stitch & Zip glasses case with a blank front. That way you can finish it yourself quickly. Next do a Google image search for sunglasses outline. I did that and found lots of cool shapes. Find one you are seeing from the front and save it to your computer. Before tracing it onto the canvas, you may need to enlarge it. Once it’s the right size, upzip the case and put the outline under the bare canvas. Using a Pigma Micron pen trace the glasses frame onto the canvas. When you do this don’t forget to trace the inside of the frame so you have a place for the lens. Using Tent Stitch and your choice of threads (the original is in wool) but I’d do a mix of threads myself, stitch the glasses.

Read More...

“Garden of Delights” is the theme of the new crafts contest at Dover Books. Use Dover clip art, a Dover pattern,or be inspired by a Dover book & win $100 worth of Dover books. Winners appear in an upcoming catalog. The contest ends June 30,2013. The winning entry will be selected based on originality and technique by the Dover editors. Learn all about it here

Read More...

Originally posted 2010-04-14 07:26:34. Republished by Blog Post PromoterToday we have a guest post from my friend Jen Funk-Webber. She puts out a delightful email newsletter, The Needlework Nutshell. She also runs the Stitching for Literacy Bookmark Challenge and designs wonderful needlework which you can see on her site, Funk & Weber Designs (http://funkandweber.com/fw/index.html). In her most recent newsletter she mused about experimenting in needlework. I loved it, and she gave her permission to reprint it here. ************** I had an interesting e-conversation with Amy recently. I do a lot of preaching about experimenting with new embroidery techniques, materials, and ideas. I’m a huge fan of doodles and am undeterred by disasters. I am willing to leap before I look, and failure is (almost) as welcome in my house as success. Truth be told, failure comes around more often than success, but he can be quite entertaining, a lover of

Read More...

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.

Read More...

Homestead, located in Grand Blanc, Michigan recently announced the rules for their needlepoint challenge. This year, you have a shape to stitch as you wish. You must, however, use at least one color each of two threads: Shaded Very Velvet and Petite Silk Lame. Here are the rules: The shape of this challenge is a sweater, drawn on white 18 ct. mono canvas at Homestead Needle Arts. It is approximately 4-1/2″ x 5″ in size. The sweater MUST be stitched with at least ONE color of Rainbow Gallery’s Shaded Petite Very Velvet AND at least ONE color of Rainbow Gallery’s Petite Silk Lame’. You may use any other threads, beads, buttons, attachments, etc. that you desire. The drawn canvas, Velvet and Silk Lame’ MUST be purchased here at Homestead Needle Arts between the dates of April 3, 2013 and May 18, 2013 (this date may be extended if there are

Read More...

Even if you have never tried your own design before you will learn how easy it is to create lovely personalized gifts in this Initial Needlepoint Mini-Class. In this two-lesson class you’ll create two gifts: the initial ornament and the super-size initial boxtop. You’ll learn: how to enlarge a letter for needlepoint how to transfer a design to needlepoint canvas how to pick an alphabet that works for monograms using Bargello needlepoint as a background using metallic effectively as a background self-finishing for boxtop or ornament Because the class is on-line, you don’t ned to travel to learn or even learn at the time the class is held. Nothing could be easier. The class begins May 5, 2013 and is only $20. This is an early bird discount. On April 4, 2013, the price goes up to $25. Use the PayPal button below to enroll now. If you would prefer

Read More...

Originally posted 2007-12-02 15:32:43. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI hope my previous two posts have gotten you excited about exploring the world of diaper patterns. As promised, I’ve searched the Web to bring together some additional resources about them. Diapers in Needlework (instruction) My friend, Judy Harper, loves diaper patterns and has a lovely post about them on her blog. Best of all it shows two wonderful designs. I have the egg one in my stash, but haven’t stitched it yet. On the ANG site, there is a two-part article on diaper patterns. Read Part 1 here. And Part 2 here. Ann Strite-Krutz has a wonderful sampler available to order for teaching you about diapers. Here are picutres of several stitchers work from an EGA class, Old Staffordshire, which showcases diaper patterns. Diapers in Other Media (inspriation) Artlandia has pictures of three diaper patterns. Google Books has the book Pattern

Read More...

Originally posted 2009-01-18 06:46:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Don’t you just love this bird template? They are such great shapes and they make such a wonderful starting point for creative needlepoint. You can go directly to the post to download them as a PNG or PDF. I keep thinking about cool things to do with them. You could do them as bargello or stitch samplers, you could make a realistic bird. You could add embellishments. To put them on needlepoint canvas, follow the instructions on All about Needlepoint and stitch away! The designs are from tricia-rennea’s blog and she did them originally to be cut out of paper. I learned about them from Sister Denise at Craft Gossip

Read More...

Originally posted 2010-01-04 07:28:57. Republished by Blog Post PromoterMy friend Jocelyn, a marvelous New Zealand stitcher, is embarking of a fantastic needlepoint adventure to design her own needlepoint geometric as she goes along. I think this is a simply fantastic idea and one I’m far too controlling to do. But I wish I wasn’t like that. She has several posts so far on the project. In this first one, she describes her idea, picks her colors and prepares the ground. Then she begins with the center and starts grappling with the design. Like many us, she would like a format for the square and chose a quilt block as the basis. If you’ve struggled with doing your own design, you will also find her thought process about size enlightening. In the third post, you see how she stitched the center block and the result

Read More...

Originally posted 2009-09-24 07:25:38. Republished by Blog Post Promoter An easy way to accent the focal point of any needlerpoint, especially if it is a simple one such as this autumn leaf, is to have the background stitch “point” to the center of the stitching. This process is called “mitering.” When you miter a background, you will turn the direction of the stitch so that the line of stitches always points towards the center. To make this work you will need to be using box or diagonal stitches, and you will need to stitch each corner individually. For this background I used Diagonal Mosaic (diagrammed above). The hardest thing, I found, about doing this technique is finding the middle. Since this is a diamond, the middle is the intersection at each compass point. If the middle were a hole, my two mitered corners could meet each other. Because it is

Read More...

Originally posted 2007-11-30 09:27:23. Republished by Blog Post PromoterDIAPER PATTERNS, Ann Strite-Kurz, book with CD, self-published I first became acquainted with Ann’s love of diaper patterns in the early 80’s when I did her Group Correspondence Course on the through my local EGA chapter. I still have that pillow in my living room and I love the pretty patterns which developed. Ann later published a book, Potpourri of Pattern, which explores diaper patterns and how to form them in more detail. With Diaper Patterns she has given us an even more comprehensive look at these patterns, packed full of history, design guidelines and examples. Like her other recent books on backgrounds and couching, Diaper Patterns comes with a CD which has larger pictures of all the stitched samples. This is such a wonderful way to expand an enhance what can be shown in the book. The first chapter has an

Read More...

For all these years I’ve been doing needlepoint, I’ve always seen things that inspire me: great ideas, lovely needlepoint, cool techniques. And until recently I’ve kept these by making notebooks, lots and lots of notebooks. But there are several problems with them. They are not organized take up too much space new ones can be hard to find Pinterest acts as a wonderful virtual and organized notebook. I’m crazy about the site and I’m using it as a collected repository of needlepoint. On Pinterest, images are collected into boards that are of a subject. Because you determine the names of the boards, you can categorize them however you like. For example, I have a board called “cats” but another pinner (the term for users) has boards for tabby cats, white cats, black cats, and kittens. Most of my boards have to do with needlepoint and I’d like to share them

Read More...

Do you like Tiffany glass? A major collection of Tiffany had been collected by one man and housed in a specially-built museum in Japan. With the earthquake and tsunmai, he decided this wasn’t the best place for such and extensive collection, so he decided to auction it off earlier this year. The auctioneer was in Alameda CA not far from me. On Saturday morning my son and I travelled to see the preview. It was amazing — stuff Louis Comfort Tiffany owned, plates, windows, lamps, vases, desk sets, and tons of other stuff. The auction is over but you can still enjoy the catalog as a PDF (it has every piece pictured), see highlights on-line, or even buy a printed version ($45 shipped) if you call. In the highlights click on a thumbnail to see a larger picture. Lamps were a big part of the auction and each had it’s

Read More...

Lois Kershner, self-published, 2012 ISBN978-1-4675-1069-1 Lois’s threadscape needlepoints are so wonderfully compelling: take a stunning landscape and use it as the basis of needlepoint. Others have created needlepoint postcards in the past, but Lois’s pieces not only depict the scene, they make it better. Visit her website and see some she offers as classes and you’ll immediately see what I mean. Better than taking a class to do one of these projects, though wonderful in itself, is learning how to do your own version of these lovely threadscapes. This new book is designed both to give you the tools and techniques you need to stitch a threadscape, and to give you the confidence to do one on your own. In this Lois succeeds admirably. The book is divided into three sections. The first chapter handles design considerations in creating a threadscape. I like that it applies many tried and true

Read More...

CRESUS artisanat is not likely to be a name you’ve heard before. But this delightful Etsy shop is owned by Haruhi, a Japanese stitcher who makes delightfully original needlepoint. Her paisley needlepoint coasters are pictured here. She also has a lovely blog with pictures of many of her projects. Although it’s in Japanese, you’ll love the close-up pictures of her work. I also like that there is so much here that we can apply to our own work. Single & Simple – Notice that each piece only uses one stitch and often it is a simple one. As we progress in stitching we often forget just how powerful the most basic of stitches can be. Stick to one type of color – The coasters pictured here use a mostly neutral palette with lots of whites. Other pieces of hers use brights with white. She uses a polychrome (many-colored) scheme but

Read More...