It’s summer and I have two special offers for you, good through Labor Day (how’s that for a vacation special?) First you can download and read, completely free, the Traveling with Needlepoint chapter. It’s a PDF file, and you get it by clicking the link.

Second, I am offering the book at a special price to my readers. The book, including shipping via first class mail in the US is only $16. That’s below retail, even with the shipping! Use the PayPal button below to order.

Take advantage of this great offer today and keep stitching!

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It gave me pause, because I was also looking at The Needlepoint Book, first published 21 years later.

Since most of us started stitching after the needlepoint “revolution” of the early 70′s we probably don’t think about it much, but the needlepoint of the 50′s was very different.

In the 50′s almost all needlepoint was pre-worked and very traditional in style. Furnishings inspired by the American colonies was popular and these designs fitted well in those decors.

Wool ruled to the exclusion of almost anything else. Original design was not encouraged, in the 50′s book only a short chapter near the end covers it.

Half-cross was the default stitch. Although Basketweave and Continental are covered, every picture of the back of stitching is half-cross. Only one non-tent stitch is even mentioned, Bargello, and no Bargello pieces are shown, so you can’t do a project in Bargello from this book.

Then look at The Needlepoint Book. You are encouraged to design your own projects and the author’s original designs are throughout the book. There are many, many stitches, both pictured and diagrammed.

You learn advanced techniques, in the 50′s book the only advanced technique covered is how to repair or splice canvas. You learn about color and design. All this was before the revolution in threads.

Even so, The Needlepoint Book from the 70′s looks contemporary and is still useful. The book from the 50′s looks quaint.

Think how far we have come!

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5. New Search Capabilities

A lovely thing to do to take a break from stitching.

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• Pearl Cotton
• Linen Threads
• Needlepoint Pattern Free Directories Pins
• Adaptation – Making a Needlepoint Plaid
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• Adaptation – Change Ringing
• Adaptation – Clumping – formerly this was part of a $5 technique sheet
• Adaptation – Stained Glass
• Thread Stash Building
• How to Miter a Corner
• Ornament to Stand-up Conversion with Button Back – includes information on how to do this with already finished ornaments
• Ornament Finishing – Box Finish
• The Ornament Collection – my story
• Last Minute Needlepoint Gift Ideas
• Ornament Finishing – Covered Buttons
• Ornament Finishing – Folded Diamond
• Christmas Decorating Ideas Using Needlepoint

I’m planning this week to add the ornament section of the free patterns, more Christmas articles, and a couple more adaptation articles.

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There are two new free patterns pages: quilt-based geometrics and kids needlepoint, and specific needlepoint techniques. Several of these patterns have been intregrated into the existing directories as well.

And lots of new thread information, including articles aboutpearl cotton, dyelots in Caron Collection overdyes , and finishes in Kreinik metallics.

There is also a new main section, Needlepoint Projects, which will gather in one place material from throughout the site for people wanting to make particular projects. An article on thereads and stitches for chair seats and measuring and making a footstool or seat cover are new there this week.

I’ve got a bunch more stuff in the queue to add and some questions to answer, so stop back often to see what’s there.

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You may have thought, or even been taught several times, that Continental only has oblique stitches in every other row. This is not correct. That stitch is a combination stitch of Continental and Half-cross Stitch. Do not use it. Read my post from yesterday about how to stitch Continental, or watch Susan’s video to learn how to make the stitch.

Once you learn, your needlepoint will be released for all kinds of new effects.

First, Continental uses about a third less thread than Basketweave. Most kits have enough thread in them for Continental, not Basketweave, So you don’t have much of a choice here. Or you might be short on thread or can’t find the dyelot. Using Continental could be the difference between finishing a piece and having it languish, forever, as a UFO.

The kit problem is something even the most expensive kits have. If you won’t stitch Continental many backgrounds won’t be finished, and you will end up complaining about shortages in kits.

Tip #1: Use Continental instead of Basketweave for kits.

Right now I’m using a scrap of canvas for a piece that has three squares of Tent Stitch on it, made using a very strongly colored hand-dyed thread (pictured at the top of the post). I picked the thread deliberately to really make a point about why you don’t use Basketweave with these threads. The square is small, only and inch at most, maybe less. But, except for the corner, no color has more than one diagonal row. It is visual overload. You don’t see colors, you don’t see a pattern, you don’t see anything except a mess.

Contrast that with the two Continental patches. While I still don’t like the color much, I see groups of color, little clouds, and rows and partial rows. I can see and process that changes, there is a transition from hot pink, to bright aqua, to light green, which makes sense, I don’t feel disjointed.

Tip #2: Use Continental instead of Basketweave with hand-dyed and overdyed threads.

Third, because Continental is stitched in straight lines you have more control over the thread. If I want something to look like a sky, I can use a hand-dyed thread and Continental in horizontal lines and have a pretty effect with one thread and one stitch. If I want to make a tree trunk I can do the same in columns, and, I have a tree.

I can make little short row clumps of Continental and scatter them all over the canvas and then stitch the entire remaining space in Continental again and have an effect like Art Glass. I can skip stitches and fill them in with other colors to get lovely random spaces.

Tip #3: Use Continental when you want to control color effects in all threads.

Finally, I like Continental when I’m really stressed out. It is one of a few stitches, where I don’t have to think at all, I just stitch. And because the eye can take in and understand rows and columns more easily than diagonal rows, I always feel as if I have made progress, even if I have only stitched for a few minutes.

Tip #4: Use Continental instead of Basketweave when you just need the motion of needlepoint to relax you.

Sometimes, if I think about it, this attitude makes me a bit of an iconoclast in the needlepoint world. But, to tell you the truth, some of the most memorable needlepoint I have ever seen was done in all Continental.

Continental was the way people did needlepoint for ages. Look at pieces from the early to mid-20th Century, it probably is stitched in Continental, the back as lovely as the front, with the oblique sloping lines of Continental still showing the design, although slightly distorted.

I was so delighted when I finally conquered Basketweave, that I avoided Continental for years. But no stitch is bad, and Continental is so good for so many applications in needlepoint, it should be a necessary and often used tool in every needlepointers book.

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1. Quick Continental Note
2. Why Continental?
3. How to Stitch Irregular Continental
4. Using Overdyed and Hand-dyed Threads on Painted Canvas
5. Heart Update – The Morning Fog

On Sunday I was at a local knitting shop with a friend. This shop sells a small bit of needlepoint as well. We were talking about business and she said that she hoped knitting would pick up again after the “scarf craze.”

Yesterday Cheryl posted a comment about the new site saying, “Kudos to you for bringing awareness of needlepoint back again. I am so concerned that it is going to become a lost art as young people have little time nowdays and tend to go to the hobbies that give instant results.”

This got me thinking about what we want hobbies to be. We live busy lives, so we want a hobby which fits into our lives. It should be

simple
portable
easy to do in little bits
stress-relieving
substantial (there is something made at the end of the process
beautiful
modern, not stuffy

Let’s quickly look at needlepoint in these terms.

Is it simple? Yes! You can teach someone the Bargello Stitch in two minutes, and Continental in about five. With those two stitches, you can make so many wonderful things.

Is it portable? Yes! Unlike many other crafts, you don’t need to bring a pattern with you, and you don’t need a flat surface to do your work.

Is it easy to do in little bits? Yes! A stitch here and a stitch there and pretty soon it’s all done. I’m sure many of use keep needlepoint in the car, and drive our spouses nuts by taking a project with us everywhere, “just in case.” In fact I think it’s easier to do needlepoint in little bits of time than any other craft I know.

Is it stress-relieving? Yes! Like many other crafts, it puts you into a meditative state where you relax, let go of the problems, and take a mental vacation.

Is it beautiful? Yes! Adaptation, charted canvas, original project, kit, or painted canvas, the result is something which is beautiful, a work of hands and heart.

Is it modern and unstuffy? Yes! But this is where the perception of needlepoint has problems. People think it’s for ladylike buttoned up society people (I always think of Cosmo’s wife in Topper when I think of this). Needlepointers are not like that. And one of my goals is to show that to the world.

I’d love to see people in the indie crafts movement take up needlepoint and see what they can do with it. I’d love to see people breaking the boundaries of what can be done. I’d love to see needlepoint as part of reuse and recycle projects. (Heck, I am so thrifty in using my thread stash that I do whole projects from what is there and did this even before it got huge.)

In this blog, I’ve pointed out many people and projects which break our perceptions of what needlepoint is. If you’ve done something fun or different with needlepoint, let me know about it and I’ll show it off. If there is something you’d like to see people do or an idea you want to bring out for getting needlepoint more noticed. Let me know as well.

Shake up the world, do some needlepoint!

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I also don’t keep many records of what I’ve stitched. I resolve to do so and then it last about a week or two.

I don’t sign my work much because I tend to think signatures intrude. Ideally I’d like something which tells people I made it, doesn’t look like the labels my grandmother used to use, is archival and which won’t intrude on the needlework.

I just found out about Namemaker, a company which makes custom fabric labels in a number of styles. I like their many options and their clean look.

I think I’m going to make a bunch and sew them carefully to the back of my needlework as it gets finished. If it turns into a pillow, ornament, or stocking, it will get sewn on the back or bottom. If it’s a picture, I’ll glue it onto the back.

This way people will know that I made it long after they have forgotten or I’m gone.

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Get all the details here/

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