stitch diagrams Archive

Finding stitches for those tricky small areas in needlepoint canvases is always a challenge. You face it, I face it, all stitchers face it. Too much Basketweave can be dull, and too many stitches are to big to fit properly. What’s a stitcher to do? In facing this problem myself, I’ve collected and designed innovative stitches that are great for small areas. Now I’m sharing them with you in a set of four ebooks. The Small Stitch Samplers are ready for pre-order at a special pre-pulication price. Each sampler showcases 25 stitches (the middle blocks), with a wide border in another lovely stitch. The texts are designed to be permanent additions to your stitching library with stitch diagrams, pictures of stitched samples and stitching notes. NOt only do you get a great reference in stitching the projects, you’ll create your own unique color scheme based on a shade of Watercolours.

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Originally posted 2009-12-18 07:10:02. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThe days after Christmas are often doldrums for needlepointers. You’ve gotten all your Christmas projects done. You didn’t get any needlepoint for Christmas, and you are too tired to start something new. Why not look forward to the new year by planning some year-long projects. About.com has announced two. Here’s what they say about them. The first series is the Flavor of the Month Club and is based on ice cream on a stick. At the beginning of each month, a pattern will be posted featuring a design based on the following month (so you’ll be working a month ahead). This series will start December 1st with the “flavor” for January. At the end of the year, you’ll have 12 nifty ice creams on sticks that can be displayed in a bucket. This will really be a fun series! The second series

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Originally posted 2009-03-27 07:09:41. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI got an email from a reader recently, it said: “I was teaching myself the french knot. Looking at different stitching books I found that there was not one right technique. What technique to you use? ` I know what you mean. I have been told that what I call a French Knot is actually a colonial knot, but to tell you the truth I can’t see one bit of difference, so I call them French Knots. I haven’t found a really good illustration in a book for French Knots, but I found some good stuff on-line. –a video tutorial by a stitcher with an excellent reputation. –an excellent photo tutorial from a quilting shop in NYC. – another video tutorial. – an illustrated tutorial (drawings) from Sublime Stitching, – and one by them for lefties. – a YouTube video. – another

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Originally posted 2007-03-23 06:07:20. Republished by Blog Post PromoterEvery time I need to make a curved line on a needlepoint canvas, this is how I feel. And of course, since needlepoint canvas is a grid, it’s a very appropriate feeling. But recently I’ve solved the problem with two easy stitched which make lovely curved lines which stand up prettily from the canvas. I use Whipped Backstitch. Backstitch is fine enough that you can follow a curve, and whipping the stitch (wrapping it) does several things. It turns the choppy Backstitch line into a smooth on. It creates curves instead of bumps. Finally it tightens the stitch making it stand up some from the canvas. Do you want to make the line thicker — Make a two lines of Backstitch and whip them. It’s simple to do. Begin by making a line of Backstitch. All stitches should go over at least

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Originally posted 2010-01-18 07:09:58. Republished by Blog Post PromoterCheryl Fall, the Needlepoint Guide at About.com, has a fantastic year-long learning project happening. She wants you to learn new stitches by creating a stitch journal. Learn how to make your journal, then print the pages for individual stitches. By making your stitch samples, you’ll also use up a bunch of thread from your stash. If you’re new to needlepoint, this will increase the stitches you know. If you’ve been stitching a long time, you’ll find new stitches. This is such a great idea!

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Sandy Arthur has given us the most delightful gift. And we’ll learn lots from it too. Based on a program she has given in the past to various groups. she’s created a stitch notebook program. Best of all it’s free! On her blog she has the notebook sampler page to download. It has the basic information to create the notebook plus a template page you can use for each stitch you learn. There is a Yahoo group for those who want to follow the series plus get additional information. Sandy hopes to post new stitches each Wednesday. I’m so excited about this. Sandy has given us some additional posts showing some of the pages from her own notebook and given us tips on organizing material for your notebook. Thank you Sandy!

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For over a decade each month the American Needlepoint Guild has been building an amazing resource for stitchers. Their STitch of the Month series is, hands down, the best Internet source for free stitch ideas. If you aren’t familiar with it go visit it, and get lost in so many great ideas. Except in December, a new stitch is added each month. They are listed and linked on the series’ home page by date, with the name of the stitch as the link. For most years one well-known needlepoint teacher or designer picks these stitches. Past designers include Ro Pace, Sharon G, and Tony Minieri. Each December there is a project (these are listed by project name) incorporating all the stitches from the year. These are accompanied by a color picture of the project. The past several years have included mystery projects. The instructions, each incorporating a new stitch, are

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Originally posted 2009-10-13 07:25:29. Republished by Blog Post Promoter When faced with a stitch such as Four-way Continental (diagram above), I don’t do well. Call me a dummy, but keeping on track with this stitch has been close to an impossibility in needlepoint for me. And the problem is that so many canvases have little spaces where small patterns that give texture can really shine. But I had a revelation last week. It makes needlepoint with stitches like these (tent-cross check above) so easy it has changed me life. This technique will work with ANY stitch that alternates and goes over only one intersection. That means T Stitch, Four-way Continental, Skip Tent, David’s Stucco Stitch, Tent-cross Check, and more I can’t think of at the moment. Look at the weave of mono needlepoint canvas. The thread goes over and under so that a horizontal thread is on top for one

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Originally posted 2008-09-24 07:07:29. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Now I’m caught up. Since my DS gave me Pushing Daisies on DVD as a birthday present, we’ve been watching to get ready for the new season. And House was on last night, So for a change, I’ve had some time to stitch these past couple of days. I finished the second E block on the Celebrate Sampler and I am really loving the way it is coming together. I want to take a minute to talk about the thread selection as a whole. It was inspired by some beads in my stash which combine pink and just a bit of gold. Since pink is one of my favorite colors, I have tons of it in my stash, especially orangish pinks and corals, so I pulled them first. I made sure if I picked overdyes that they were primarily these colors.

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Originally posted 2009-04-20 06:04:42. Republished by Blog Post Promoter As my friend Debbie would remind me trianglepoint is so fun and so easy, and this quilt, which is on Material Obsession (look down a little way in the Be Content post) is a wonderful springboard for making a trianglepoint piece. What is Trianglepoint you ask? Trianglepoint is a technique developed by Sherlee Lantz in the 1970′s which uses straight stitches to make equilateral triangles. Quilters might also call these 60 degree triangles, because all the angles are 60 degrees. Unlike right triangles, these are not half a square or rectangle, so they aren’t as intuitive to make, but once you learn the basic technique, they are so fun. You can now make hexagons and put many of them together to make lager triangles and wide stripes. Sherlee wrote a book, Trianglepoint, about the technique, which can often be found in

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Free needlepoint projects, lots of new stitches, monthly programs, small projects! What more could you want. My 2013 series, Learn a Stitch Needlepoint Owl, starts this month with this adorable owl. Inspired by a patchwork cell phone case, you can make these owls in any colors you like. Every month four new stitches will be highlighted (one for each area except the eyes. The monthly project will appear on the fifteenth of every month through 2013. Complete instructions for the piece start below. Prepare your Canvas For this project you will need: 6 x 8 piece mono canvas in your choice of canvas light-colored solid thread for face dark-colored solid thread for eyes 3 solid or overdyed threads for body areas & triangle (optional) metallic to outline body areas For this owl I used: Kreinik #12 in4010HL Watercolours in 307 Calypso Conjoined Creations in 825M Burmilana in 3906 Hyla’s High

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Have you been frustrated because you don’t feel confident in picking stitches to go with a thread? Do you wish you had a notebook that you could use that showed you stitch variations, stitches in different threads and stitching effects? Are you always wanting to try new stitches? In this series of four Stitches for Needlepoint classes, you’ll learn all this and more. Each class is three months long and is designed for you to create notebooks of the stitches, threads and techniques you’re learning. That’s it, no projects to finish, no information you don’t need and, best of all, because they are on-line classes you can learn when you have the time at your own pace. Instead of giving you a bunch of stitches designed for specific kinds of items that may not be what you stitch, these classes will teach you stitches. Once you’ve looked at them, it

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Canvases with letters, especially small ones, can be a real challenge for needlepoint. This might be why they stay popular for Cross Stitch, where the background is already there, but aren’t common in needlepoint except when done on colored canvas. With this canvas I realized why; letters are fussy. They have small spaces, they go in and out alot, and they are close together. With only one open thread between the letters, most decorative stitches don’t fit. Picking a background stitch that doesn’t require too much compensation is tricky. One solution seen in older needlepoint is to Tent Stitch the lettered area and do a decorative stitch around it. Because the background is small here, there wouldn’t be much space for the decorative stitch. This technique needs more space. Another solution would be a Tent Stitch pattern, such as those found in Needlepoint Damask. I love this technique but I

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Originally posted 2009-10-25 07:26:43. Republished by Blog Post PromoterThe two stitches featured this week on Rittenhouse Needlepoint’s blog are outstanding stitches, not only for backgrounds, but as accents as well. Cushion Stitch, or Framed Scotch Stitch puts Scotch Stitches into Tent Stitch frames. Done all in the same thread, it creates a subtle texture. Do it in two different colors or threads and you get a strong pattern, great for an unusual background. You still have the boxiness of Scotch, along with its regular rhythm, but the Tent Stitch frame makes it seem less rigid. I like it as a stitch for buildings or for clothing. Combination Cross is an interlocked version of regular and Upright Cross Stitches. The constant change in direction gives this stitch a texture much greater than its small scale would suggest. It’s a good background, especially on a smaller piece. The texture of this stitch

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Books are tools, not just static storage for information. Those great needlepoint stitches aren’t worth much if you can’t use them. All too often you can’t because the books aren’t useful for you. Yesterday we talked about some needlepoint stitch variations that work for very tiny spaces. Today we’ll talk about what defines a tiny stitch and I’ll give you some tips on hacking your books to make them more useful for finding small needlepoint stitches. What’s a Small Needlepoint Stitch? For a stitch to fit into a space, there needs to be three repeats of the stitch unit. That is enough to allow your eye to see a pattern. By seeing a pattern your brain “fills in” the missing stitches so that it looks as if the pattern continues behind other objects. Without this level of repetition, your brain doesn’t see pattern, it sees visual noise. Looking at needlepoint

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