TNNA is the professional organization for the NeedleArts (needlepoint, knitting, crochet, embroidery, spinning, cross stitch and weaving. Every few years they do the most in-depth and largest survey of the State of the NeedleArts. Your answers to these questions help manufacturers and shop owners learn what matters to you most. Visit here and fill out the survey. It only takes about 10 minutes to do. One lucky participant will win a $100 gift certificate to a favorite needlework shop
Needle in a Haystack is celebrating their fifteenth anniversary with a Fab Fifteen Sale. Each day the shop is open (Tues-Sat) a new category of items is put on sale at 15% off. If you buy during the sale you will get an entry in a daily giveaway plus an entry for the big giveaway at the end of the celebration. The sales are on in-stock items and you must ask for the discount. Through Monday a huge assortment of threads, from basics to exciting less well-known threads is on sale. Check out the sale page to see what is discounted. Remember to check back each day to see what the day’s item might be
Michrle is a beginning needlepointer. She wrote to me last week wanting to know how to find a needlepoint store. Because she lives “in the middle of nowhere,” finding one with an on-line presence is important. Here’s my advice for finding a shop you’ll love and work with forever. In terms of finding a store, the very best thing is to find one in your area, even if not really close, so you can establish an in-person relationship. I don’t go to my LNS (Local Needlework Shop) that often but I order from them all the time by phone, email, and on their site. Because we’ve met face-to-face there is a connection. If that isn’t possible, the next best choice is to find a physical shop that has a website you can use for ordering. Not all shops have sites where you can order and not all webshops have physical
One of my favorite web stores, The Scarlet Thread is closing. They will be ceasing operations in March 2013. So they’re having a huge blowout sale! They’re giving you 30% off your entire purchase at checkout. Simply use the promotion code 30OFF when you check out. They are no longer accepting international orders/shipments or phone calls. Go visit & stock up
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
If you are a cross stitcher, new to needlepoint, or someone who has been doing lots of charted canvas projects, you may be thinking that hand-painted canvas is the tippy top of the needlepoint heap. Like many, many needlepointers, I love to stitch these canvases. I find it a real challenge to convert the artist’s idea (on the canvas) to threads and stitches. When I do this I not only complete the work but I add my own talent and creativity to the mix. I stitched for a long time before I tried my hand at these canvases and I often worried about messing them up. To be quite honest, I still do. One factor that causes this is the price. The handwork involved in painting a canvas makes them expensive. But if you’re looking to try these delights out, here’s a way to begin easily and inexpensively. 1. Pick
Needle Delights in Florida has closed their shop so that the owner, Kathy, can concentrate on her simply wonderful counted needlepoint designs. She just posted a bunch of painted canvases on her site as part of the sale. There are some amazing bargains here (I had to keep myself from buying a ton of them). There are lots of ornaments from The Princess and Me, some Peteis, two Charley Harper canvases, and lots more. Since everything is subject to prior sale, some of this stuff might be gone by now. But check it out. P.S. If you like counted needlepoint, check out her page of stuff in the sale. There are wonderful bargains here as well
Based in Philadephia, Rittenhouse Needlepoint has quickly become a destination shop for stitchers in the area. Their original website has become a destination for stitchers elsewhere. As the company and their activities has grown, the original site didn’t do justice to the many facets of this business. With their new site Myneedlepoint.com, everything is together under one virtual roof. The home page has with thumbnails and captions, links to all of the company’s activities.Click on Rittenhouse Needlepoint to visit the shop’s site (and order from them). Click on Finishing Needlepoint to be treated to a slideshow of finished items, an extensive gallery of finished needlepoint (with over 100 pictures), a price list of services, and contact information. Painting Needlepoint has information about their popular custom painting service. This daughter site includes rates, goals, examples of finished canvas, and information about the painters. My favorite page here was Design & Develop
Loretta Spears was a legendary needlepoint designer, best known for her Mystery Projects, which still are popular. Recently Lara Hartley has been stitching many of her projects, both large and small and blogging about them in Diet Pepsi & Xanax. Jane Wood is working on a comprehensive listing of Loretta’s projects (which can be elusive). You can see this at The Loretta Spears Design Archive. She also owned a needlepoint shop. Thanks to Lara, we have this thought-povoking post from RCTN, the old needlework newsgroup. The poll ran in June 1996. Loretta Spears reported on the results. She said: “Well, the results of the poll on needlework shops was very interesting. Basically we all want the same thing. 1. This was listed on almost every response as # 1 . Acknowledge me being there–Hi-Hello-May I help you etc. Then leave me alone!!! Do not hover over me– I will call
I’ve gone to TNNA’s winter show most years since 1998 and I’ve watched knitting and needlepoint rise and fall. At the height of the knitting fad, it seemed as if needlepoint was almost an afterthought. Right now, I would say they are about even in number of vendors. This is especially true when you consider the yarn manufacturers who also make needlepoint yarns (these are growing — more tomorrow on this) and other companies selling into both markets who were on the knitting side of the show. Looking at knitting vs. needlepoint I saw some interesting contrasts that are good for us as stitchers. Needlepoint shops came to buy as well as to look. Although there is always lots of interest in the newest canvases and threads, often you’d see shopowners going through a both and ordering many canvases from the existing line. For us, this means that we aren’t
Originally posted 2009-09-19 06:43:38. Republished by Blog Post PromoterWhen I moved to California in 1980, I was sort of lost for needlepoint. Yes, there were some stores in San Francisco, but I didn’t have time on my lunch hour to get to them. There was a knitting and needlepoint store on my way home from work, but it was not too exciting. But all that changed when I moved to Rockridge, a neighborhood in North Oakland. On the main street and just at the bottom of my street was a wonderful needlepoint store, The Crewel World. Owned by a lovely lady named Diane, this place was needlepoint heaven. There was lots of thread, more than the Persian Wool and floss combo of most places, canvas, books, charts, painted canvas, classes. What joy! In those days Jane Zimmerman, who lived nearby, also taught there, and Diane and the other employees who
Originally posted 2009-09-26 07:13:56. Republished by Blog Post PromoterOne of the happiest things I know about traveling is visiting needlepoint stores. Today I want to salute a few stores that I visited for the wonderful things I found there. – In Ann Arbor, on a business trip, I saw Watercolours for the first time. Amazingly enough I only bought one skein, got the free pattern and some canvas and stitched it on the way home. – On another trip, I was wokring on a Jane Greenoff Sampler and was running out of silk. On a whim I went into Rose Cottage in El Segundo, CA (now whole sale only, in Ohio, and called Potpourri, Etc.) and found the thread (which they gave me), more Jane Greenoff charts, and great friends. Whenever I went to LA, I made time to visit them. – In 2001, we were in New Hampshire on
Originally posted 2010-05-22 07:29:24. Republished by Blog Post Promoter If I ever get to Phoenix, one of my go to stops will be Family Arts Needlework. But if you are lucky enough to live near there and are a fan of counted or charted needlepoint, you have to stop in to see their current trunk show. They have over 60 models on display and close to 100 patterns to purchase. Looking at the pictures I got from a friend I saw tons of things I’d love to stitch. The show starts today. And if you go by this Sunday, May 23, you can see their take on Rainbow Gallery’s 2010 hearts collection. The first four are pictured above
several years ago DMC discontinued their beloved crewel weight wool, Medici. I probably get more questions about finding Medici so folks can finish projects than on any other topic. If you want to use a crewel weight wool and have not started the project, there are many lovely wool from which to choose. Bella Lusso from Fleur de Paris is my favorite of these, but many companies make wool in this size from old established names such as Appleton, to companies now making hand-dyed crewel wool such as The Gentle Art or Weeks Dye Works. But what do you do if you really need Medici? Threadneedle Street, a needlepoint shop in Issaquah, WA, has a substitute for Medici they say is like old Medici. To see if it really works, I asked then to send me samples of colors where I had some DMC Medici to compare the two. The
Originally posted 2010-05-12 06:59:24. Republished by Blog Post PromoterNeedlecrafter’s Travel Companion, Chalet Publishing, Colorado Springs, CO, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9708118-6-9. $11.95 Some people buy postcards or snowglobes as souvenirs of their travels, not the stitchers and knitters I know — they buy canvases, yarn, thread, and projects. I’m so bad I will buy travel pieces YEARS after I’ve been someplace, just so I have a needlepoint ornament. The first step in doing this is finding a local shop. Not only are you more likely to find something local there, you also have the fun of seeing a new shop. Always a problem has been finding the shops. The Yellow Pages used to be my main resource but I never felt as if I found what I needed. Needlecrafter’s Travel Companion is the book I’ve needed all along. Covering the US and Canada this book lists shops for knitting, cross stitch and