gallery Archive

Originally posted 2008-09-08 05:54:04. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThe first of my eBooks to be published (out late this month) will be a collection of 50 quilt blocks charted for either cross stitch or needlepoint. The blocks are charted simply and range in size from 15×15 to 24×24. You can stitch them just as they are or substitute other stitches for each square of the chart. To inspire your creativity and to show you just how flexible these blocks can be, I let the modelstitchers loose on them, giving them no instruction, no colors, and asking them to do what they liked. One of them, Jan Sprague, just posted two of her blocks on her blog. They are really cool. The top one, Alaska Homestead, is pretty much stitched as charted, with one Tent Stitch per square on the chart. I just love the way she used overdyes on this.

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Alleluia! It’s Easter. To enjoy this lovely holiday, here’s some more lovely needlepoint thanks to Carolyn Hedge Baird’s blog, Living with Needlepoint. Have a blessed day!

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Although my office is filled with real chocolate bunnies and eggs right now, waiting for Easter, I carve some Easter-themed needlepoint. Happily Carolyn Hedge Baird’s Living with Needlepoint blog is filling the bill with this delightful look at needlepoint stand-up rabbits. Aren’t they just too cute? If this isn’t enough furry cuteness for you, look for needlepoint rabbits on Pinterest, there are lots of great ones

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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

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Originally posted 2009-01-02 18:01:42. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Stitchlady has been working on this lovely Four Way Bargello piece and finished it in time for the New Year. I love the pop you get from the little buts of red “poison” color. BTW, although it sounds nasty, a poison color is a color which is outside the main color scheme, enlivening it and making the whole thing look better. It is a kind of accent color. You can read about it and her choices in a post on her blog

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I am in thrall with the gallery from Charleston’s It’s a Stitch needlepoint & knitting shop. Instead of working, I sat there enchanted with all the wonderful stitching there. Seeing as needlepoint shows are few and far between on-line slide shows like this are a wonderful way to see great needlepoint. As I looked through the slide show I got so many great ideas for canvases and finishing. It’s a lovely treat to start off this summer weekend

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Galina Tregubov makes stunning embroidered icons in Split Stitch using only DMC #5 perle cotton. The tradition of writing icons in the Orthodox Churches is a long (Yes, you “write” an icon, you don’t “paint” or even “stitch” it). It’s said that the oldest icon of all was painted by St. Luke. It’s of the Virgin Mary. The look of a particular icon is copied exactly and is passed down through the generations. These icons are found in churches and homes. What makes Galina’s icons unusual is that they are the traditional images you will see elsewher but they are done entirely in thread. I astonished at how lovely they are, especially when you consider they are done with the thread as it comes out of the skein. On her site she has a lovely slide show of her work. If you want to learn more about her technique (which

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When I saw this post on Mr XStitch on Thursday I was blown away. You will be too. Yaroslav Galant has done cross stitch on furniture of all kinds. The designs are simple geometric patterns based on traditional Ukranian motifs. It’s lovely. At first I thought these were embroidered panels on fabric upholstered onto the chairs. But they’re not. They are Corian (yes, like the countertop material) stitched with rope. It’s absolutely amazing. And durable enough to be used outdoors. He’s done many different pieces in this technique, but only a selection was chosen for the exhibit. On Galant’s own site there is more information about this amazing work. You can get to the information about the Corian collection (top story) and the Ukrainian embroidery (last story) here. The text, taken from the exhibition catalog I think, isn’t great, but read to the end and marvel at the pictures. It’s

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In a lovely post earlier this week on Asmara there were 14 stunning rooms that featured needlepoint rugs. This is just one of them. Now making a huge needlepoint rug may not be in the cards for you (although you might rethink it after seeing these rugs). But we still can learn many lessons that we can use in creating needlepoint. Here are some ideas: Let’s say you wanted to make a pillow for your living room couch. To make it easy, let’s make it Bargello so it can be any colors you want. While these rooms create their color palettes from the rug, you can also work in reverse. Take your cue from the colors in the room and use those to make a great palette. Notice how in some rooms the main color of the rug is an accent color in the room. That’s a great idea for

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We all have them UFO’s or UnFinished Objects. We challenge ourselves to finish them, we enter contests, our guild chapters have challenges, contests, and prizes. I’m as bad as all of you. But SPUN, the Society for the Prevention of Unfinished Needlepoint is here to help. They were founded in 2009 by Mary Smull “to eliminate the worldwide phenomenon of unfinished needlepoint.” The site describes their origins this way: Formed in 2009 by artist Mary Smull, SPUN has a short history, but an exciting one. The idea was born when Smull’s 96 year-old grandmother gave her the gift of a partially finished embroidered tablecloth. Smull was stricken to discover that the object still inspired feelings of guilt for her grandmother, who had begun the tablecloth in the 1960s and never completed it. Worse yet, Smull herself began to feel guilty, for she was also not completing the tablecloth. Figuring that

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Originally posted 2010-12-27 07:12:03. Republished by Blog Post PromoterBut I thought you might like to see our stitchy Christmas decorations. Mini-socks on garlands on our stairway. The Jesus tree (ornaments relating to Christ and the Holy Family). The needlepoint Christmas trees next to the “Toy Tree” which has miniature ornaments. The Christmas stockings hanging on a bookshelf since our mantle is stone. The tree close-up. Merry Christmas!

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There are so many things I love about Bargello — the patterns, the different ways to use color . . . I could go on and on. But Bargello is so easy and so simple and so fast to stitch, that it makes anything you put it on special and turns something everyday into something special and worthy of being a gift. That’s why I’m crazy about the things Allison Durno stitches and has in her Flickr photostream. She’s put Bargello onto a series of coffee mugs (bought at a chain craft store and onto a bookmark with a pretty metal frame. You can see three of the mugs plus the bookmark on her Bargello set. There’s more stitching goodness in her crafts 2012, hardanger,and biscornus sets

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Remember the post recently about Erica Wilson and Bargello? Thanks to the same folks at Retro Renovation, we have another glorious post showing us lots of pictures of vintage Bargello patterns that have been newly stitched by Bobbie, an interior designer in Philadelphia. This delightful elephant seen here is one of hers. You’ll love seeing the pillows in the context of a real home and be delighted by her interview, with even more pictures. One more note, at the end she has a cautionary note about Jonathan Adler’s ready-made Bargello pillows. You can learn about how to adapt his patterns to your own stitching with this Bargello pattern

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Originally posted 2009-03-03 08:00:09. Republished by Blog Post Promoter This heart uses Watercolours, glow in the dark Kreinik, and Sparkle Rays for a very citrus color scheme. In scanning, the Sparkle Rays bleached out completely. The pattern has three rows Tent Stitch in square and rectangular blocks. The background is stitched in T Stitch using Kreinik #4. This thread is very fine, so it leaves a hint of color and a sparkle. This heart uses another pattern of square blocks, this time grouped in sets of four. The square blocks are outlined in dark violet Very Velvet and the background is an extremely pale blue, all in Tent Stitch. The squares are filled with Diagonal Mosaic, with the upper left and lower right using a blue-green Gloriana (deep blues sea). The upper right and lower left use a light blue Elegance. The background is Nobuko, stitched using pearl cotton The

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Originally posted 2009-07-10 07:03:41. Republished by Blog Post PromoterTake a look at this completely cool needlepoint by Jacqueline Royal, which renders urban graffiti into needlepoint. It’s awesome and people have been commenting about it since a post on it appeared on the CRAFT blog earlier this week. It’s simply glorious needlepoint and there’s lots we can learn from it, even if graffiti art isn’t our thing. First notice how she gets texture in her needlepoint with some techniques which are easy for us to apply to our own work. In the concrete wall in the last piece shown, Berlin 3, she used several different colors to give the wall texture. First, she stitched the lines in gray-blue and dark gray. Then she stitched the light gray “blobs” and single stitches using a tweeded thread of two colors of gray. Finally the medium gray main color was stitched with another tweeded

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