Nuts about Needlepoint » general

July Reviews & Blog Changes

Janet Perry — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 14:28:27 +0000

I know from my email how many of you rely on this blog as a source of needlepoint news, inspiration, and instruction.

I also realize that I’m not always the most organized person on the planet. My organization strategy tends to be what I call “happy anarchy,” letting things just end up where they end up.

And this blog has tended to be the same way. But, after 8 years (yes it’s been THAT long), I think both you and I deserve more order in our lives. So, I’m adding some order to the blog, so that you know when to look for particular kinds of articles.

You’ll always know that if something is timely or important I’ll break the schedule, but if you are really interested in seeing what’s new, say, you’ll know to look on Fridays.

Tuesdays-Thursdays every week you’ll find original content from me. This has been in place for quite a long time and will continue. These columns can be an eclectic mix of everything from free projects, to sneak peeks, news, or reviews.

Fridays will be new product days. Often these posts will let you know about one or more new products. Sometimes they’ll point to where you can find out more.

Saturdays will be dedicated to needlepoint ideas, techniques, and tutorials. Sometimes these posts will point to a great resource of idea from elsewhere on the web, sometimes they will be an idea from my own stitching. On Saturdays you’ll find information to make your needlepoint sing.

Sundays and Mondays will have a mix of news, inspirational sites, and whatever else comes along. I’m going to take a page from my daughter’s blog and do “Clippings” posts where serval things are put together into one post.

I’m hoping by organizing in this way, I’ll get more of the things you want on the blog and make the information easier to find.

This month, July, all Tuesday-Thursday posts are going to be reviews. Next week it’s all Blackwork books. There are magazines, more books, threads, finishing items and lots more to come during the month.

Pardon Me While I Rearrange the Furniture

Janet Perry — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:12:27 +0000

On Monday, my fantastic DH put together the lovely IKEA daybed pictured above in my studio. This, in turn, has set off a flurry of rearranging, going through my stash and rearranging everything in the room except the desk (too heavy to move), the new daybed (in its proper place) and the bookshelves (attached to the wall).

So today, while I’m rearranging the room and cleaning up, I thought I’d give you an assortment of cool things I’ve found around the Web lately.

Liz Morrow is celebrating the first anniversary of her website with a sheet of free small designs. They are just too cute and I keep on thinking about making a bunch using scrap threads and then finishing them on button rounds as ornaments. Download it as a PDF.
Blue Dogwood Designs has a monthly series of 8″ square designs available free on their site. This month’s design is Tangled Rose. You can also get to it by clicking “This month’s stitch guide” from the left column of their home page.
Rainbow Gallery always has great free designs on their site. If you check out their free needlepoint designs page, you’ll find a charming heart by Sally London as the second design. It’s the first in a series of free designs. You will be able to get the others from you local shop. I’ve seen them and they are great.

Whether you have lots of time, or just a little, try some of these great free projects.

Needlepoint Trade Secrets: One chapter free download & special offer

Janet Perry — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:03:54 +0000

In my book, Needlepoint Trade Secrets, I share hundreds of tips with you about doing needlepoint and other needlework. I like the book so much I keep a copy on my desk as a reference.

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.

California residents get charged sales tax. If you live outside the US you will be invoiced for additional shipping costs (which ought to be small).

Take advantage of this great offer today and keep stitching!

Needlepoint in the Fifties – A Look Back

Janet Perry — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:51:12 +0000

Yesterday I had an occasion to look at the oldest needlepoint book I own, Needlepoint Made Easy, published in 1955.

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!

Coffee Break Time — a Needlework Puzzle for you!

Janet Perry — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:14:41 +0000

Thanks to Denise at Craft Gossip for pointing out this delightful Needlework Puzzle. It’s from Needlework Tips & Techniques, a fantastic reference source for needlework information.

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

New and Updated at All about Needlepoint

Janet Perry — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:29:41 +0000

I have been busy the last couple of weeks, adding and updating pages on All about Needlepoint. Here’s a rundown of what’s new:

Pearl Cotton
Linen Threads
Needlepoint Pattern Free Directories Pins
Adaptation – Making a Needlepoint Plaid
Needlepoint Plaid & Personal Plaid Charting Service
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.

All about Needlepoint Update

Janet Perry — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:16:38 +0000

I haven’t been quite as busy this week with the site as I had hoped, but there are still many new pages available.

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.

When Only Continental Will Do

Janet Perry — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:11:56 +0000

You know how to stitch, you aren’t teaching beginners, why would you ever use Continental if you knew Basketweave? There are occasions when you must use Continental and good reasons why you can sometimes.

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.

Second, Continental must be used when you are stitch “Plain Old Needlepoint” using overdyed and hand-dyed threads. I’ve written about this before, and it has ruined pieces for me, as you can see from the picture above.

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.

Needlepoint — the “new knitting?”

Janet Perry — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:58:17 +0000

A couple of things have come together in my mind. If they don’t entirely make sense blame it on my awful cold.

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

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!

Labeling your Needlepoint

Janet Perry — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:17:40 +0000

You probably know that you really should label your needlework. I’ve been stitching for close to 40 years and I’ve known that all along and have rarely done it.

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.

Labeling & Organization