stitch selection Archive

Today we have a guest post from Needlepoint for Fun’s wonderful newsletter. It’s tips for choosing needlepoint stitches. For anyone thinking of moving on from stitching their designs entirely in Tent Stitch (Continental 7 Basketweave), here are a few basic tips to keep in mind about stitch selection. If your design has elements that sit one in front of the other – this might be trees, people in a crowd, a collection of objects – stitch the furthest away objects first. The last stitches placed will therefore sit on top, and will bring that object further forward in the picture where it belongs. When selecting your stitch, consider the size of the design area. If you want to use a stitch that needs some space to establish the pattern (e.g. Swirl or Nobuku), then you will need a larger stitching area to apply it to. Small spaces on your canvas

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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

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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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If you missed the chance to take my popular Planning the Perfect Needlepoint Canvas class in November when it was offered, you can now take the class as a Needlepoint Independent Study. This class gives you the insights and tools you need to: recognize your stitching level (it’s more than the stitches you know) recognize the complexity of a canvas pick the perfect canvas for you plan threads and stitches to get the results you want Whether this is your first canvas or your 500th, whether it’s a kit from the craft store or a hand-painted canvas, you’ll learn so much in this class that your needlepoint will be energized and improved — all without needing to commit to stitching a class project. Sign up for this Needlepoint Independent Study Course on this page today and improve your stitching

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Originally posted 2009-07-23 07:06:13. Republished by Blog Post PromoterA reader asked me a question about threads and stitches to use for stitching sand. Sand can be tough because it has an uneven texture and most of our threads are smooth. It has texture but one which is non-directional and most of our stitches have obvious directions. Here are some strategies I like to use. For threads there are two I recommend. You want something which has an uneven or nubby texture but which is soft not rough. Cotton Plus from Ty-Di Threads has a lovely nubby texture that works well for sand, but it has a limited range of colors. Rainbow Linen or Thread Gather’s Flax n’Colors would be the linen threads I’d try, with my preference being Rainbow Linen. Other linen threads, like DMC, are only available in sets of colors (although this thread would work) or are too

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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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That’s the name of a new series of needlepoint classes I’m doing with Art Needlepoint. These projects are small, so they can be finished quickly. They will feature great stitches and plenty of ideas and techniques you can use in your other needlepoint projects. This first class features this delightful cat by Sophie Harding. In the two-lesson email class you’ll learn stitches to make realistic fur, ideas for selecting and stitching a complex multi-color background, and hw to add delicate but realistic detail. You’ll love the result. As always the class is free with the purchase of the kit. Don’t delay because the class starts September 15. Hop on over to Art Needlepoint to order

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Do you have tons of thread in your stash? Do you keep every bit of leftover thread in case you need it someday? Does your thread stash rival that of many shops? Has it ceased being a stash and started to be a “collection?” Would you like to do something about it and make beautiful needlepoint at the same time? The problem of too many scraps is one every quilter knows. While scrap bag quilts are fulfilling, I often wished I could figure out a system that would make creating needlepoint that would make the whole thing easy. Happily for quilters, Joan Ford developed a 7-step program called Scrap Therapy to help quilters deal with their scrap problem. And while her approach was inspiring, it’s taken me awhile to figure out how to apply it to needlepoint. The basic idea is to organize (and cut) your scraps into pieces that

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Originally posted 2009-02-08 05:32:48. Republished by Blog Post PromoterAmy Bunger has posted snippets of stitching from some of her DVD’s on YouTube and they are available on her site. The top video shows how to use Long Straight Stitches to make hair, eyebrows, beards, and mustaches. Amy uses two different threads, Petite Peluche and Boucle. There are also great picture of several finished pieces stitched this way. The bottom video shows a Melissa Shirley canvas, Nordic Santa, as stitched by one of Amy’s customers. It has great close-ups of the many stitches in this piece

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Originally posted 2009-06-27 06:31:33. Republished by Blog Post PromoterYou are probably like I’ve been most of my needlepointing life, your stash as well as your pile of unfinished needlepoint projects has pieces which befuddle you. You just don’t know what stitch to put in an area. Or the stitch you picked isn’t working. Or you can’t find a good background. It happens to all of us. Sure you could go out and buy a full stitch guide, but that’s overkill when you just need a little hep. This difficulty faces every stitcher and I’ve helped many of them in the past. But no one has provided this help to stitchers everywhere. Inspired by your questions, I’ve introduced a new service to turn those lovely canvases into masterpieces inexpensively. The service is my Quick Stitch Help and it begins at $5. You tell me about the canvas, the “problem” area, and

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When the water is smooth, finding a color and stitch to use is easy. But what if you want to capture the feel of a choppy, open sea? Finding a good solution for this has always eluded me. That is until now. I found most overdyes, which might be good to capture the changing colors of the water to be too bold when changing color. In addition they rarely include white or light blue to show those occasional glimpses of whitecap when the wind whips a little crest. When it came to stitches I felt as if most things I tried were just too directional. So I never got the choppy feel of the water. Since I live on an island, I got to think about this pretty much every day when I crossed a bridge. I wanted the backgrounds of this pirate series to reflect the open ocean and

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If you’re like me a needlepoint canvas with lots of tiny spaces is both a pleasure and a pain. It’s a pleasure because usually they are small and fast to stitch. It’s a pain because it’s challenging to come up with enough different stitches to keep the piece from looking boring. That’s why I’m so excited about this new cyberclass I’m doing in conjunction with Art Needlepoint. This adorable kangaroo luggage tag has tons of small areas perfect for trying out many stitches that will give texture to those troublesome small areas in your needlepoint. And every one of them is easy to do. They don’t require complex counting and don’t come together in ways that can be confusing. Not only will this class tech you many exciting new stitches, you’ll also learn how to tell if a stitch will fit, easy ways to vary a stitch, and tricks to

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Originally posted 2006-11-15 07:05:12. Republished by Blog Post PromoterProbably my favorite needlepoint designs of all time, are these hand-painted mini-socks from when In Good Company started. I’ve been addicted to them since the beginning, have stitched dozens of them, and, although they haven’t been made since about 1992, I keep buying them when I can find them. Click on thumbnail to see more detailed picture. When I snagged this one I was thinking it would be all Basketweave, very simple, and all wool. But the more I looked at it the more I saw possibilities. As needlepointers, we often think that tiny spaces can only have Tent Stitch but we’re wrong. If you only have one thread, you could do Victorian Cross Stitch, attach a bead, or make a knot. If you have a two-stitch block, you can do Mosaic, a bigger Cross Stitch, and many more stitches. Recently I

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Originally posted 2010-02-24 07:29:10. Republished by Blog Post Promoter As we learned yesterday, needlepoint stitches have direction. This can be a bane or a blessing unless you know how to use it. Most needlepoint stitches fall into one of two classes, Upright or diagonal. Diagonal stitches, by far the most common, have stitches which run along ther true diagonal of the canvas. This means that for every thread they move horizontally, they more one thread vertically. The direction of the slant doesn’t matter; it’s the slope that makes them diagonal. Box stitches and many cross stitches are forms of diagonal stitches. If the stitch slants up and to the right, that is the standard version of the stitch. Flip is so that it slants up and to the left and you have a reverse version. Diagonal stitches go over intersections of canvas. Upright, or Straight, stitches, go in a straight

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Sandra Arthur, 2012, http://www.duodesigns.com If you are like me, you’re a stitcher who mostly avoids borders (and therefore corners), and odd shapes such as ovals, hexagons, and parallelograms. After reading Sandra’s book, I’m ready to jump right in because it’s packed full of clever ideas and stitches. Of all the shapes covered in this series, the choices for these shapes in the usual stitches are so limited. Even if you “know” something like a Rhodes Stitch can be an oval. You may be unwilling to try it, I know I am. After looking at this book, I feel confident I can do this and adapt many other stitches to ovals, even simple ones such as Upright Gobelin or Hungarian. This book has a detailed table of contents, showing areas by size and listing the stitches diagrammed for this shape and size. The stitch diagrams are large, clear, and numbered. In

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