sunday stitching Archive

Originally posted 2007-12-10 07:28:17. Republished by Blog Post Promoter I have a new favorite thread, it’s the red in this new Flames Bargello project. The color is Cardinal and it’s a shade of Watercolours from the Caron Collection. I think it just glows and is the best red thread ever. I like it so much I’m going to use the rest of the skein for some Christmas ornaments (not that I have time to work on them. As I did with Tahiti Watercolours (my previous favorite) I may start stockpiling it. * * * But I also want to thank those of you who commented on the original Flames Bargello post asking about my idea for a Scrap Bag Needlepoint version. Here it is (in process). While my original plan was to do all the diamonds in different colors, the red was so striking (which I didn’t expect), that I’m

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From Jane Brocket’s The Gentle Art of Stitching: Gentle stitching is not fraught, demanding or nerve-jangling. Instead it is simple, straightforward — something that can be done when relaxing, talking, sitting in the sunshine or on holiday. It doesn’t require great amounts of skill, confidence or planning. . . .Gentle stitching is easy-going and anxiety-free and focuses on the very essence of stitching . May your stitching today be gentle

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Originally posted 2010-01-30 07:38:51. Republished by Blog Post Promoter I wanted to share with you the finished abstract cross stitch adaptation. The pattern came from the About.com Cross Stitch site. Since any chart which uses only whole stitches can be done as needlepoint, that’s what I did. The original used a number of different colors. I wanted something more muted, so I chose a color palette based on the Watercolours Amethyst. This meant violets, tending towards blue-violet, pink, gray, brown, and olive green. Mostly one color on the original chart got translated into one thread in my needlepoint. Before I began the project I pulled all my threads in these colors out and into my project bag. This turned out to be a great idea since there was a time lag in finishing the piece. If I couldn’t remember a thread, I could pick another thread in a similar color.

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Originally posted 2009-02-16 06:01:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter I do have to admit that most of the time I don’t do this. I usually give little or no thought to how something will be finished when I start to stitch. This is not good. You’ve followed the progress of my San Francisco heart I’ve been making for my daughter. When last I posted I decided to stitch a background making it square. You’d think I would have measured the finished size so I could frame it quickly. But you’d be wrong. I decided to finish it for her for Valentine’s Day and bought the only square frame I could find at Michael’s. It was 5″ square and I thought that looked right. The piece was 4.5″ square and would have a not nice border of unstitched canvas if I finished it the way it was. But there is so

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Originally posted 2006-06-05 22:31:28. Republished by Blog Post Promoter At last, here it is, the nautilus shell. It took me longer to get scanned than it took to stitch. Don’t you just love technology! I wanted to scan it on my DH’s scanner. which appears to have the lights on but nobody home. And since my printer thinks printing about 25% of the dots makes for “best” quality, I couldn’t print either. So I decided it was time to buy a new all-in-one. This should not have been hard. I knew the brand I wanted (Epson), the price I wanted to pay (under $200) and that it needed to work with a Mac. No problem, found the printer and took the card to the register to check out. Problem, they’re out of stock. No problem. It will be here Tuesday or Wednesday. Problem, it wasn’t, repeatedly. And when I called

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Originally posted 2006-07-25 06:17:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossoms. I just finished this charming small Lee’s Needle Arts kimono. It shows Mount Fuji through some blossoms on a weeping cherry tree. I just love it. I love these small kimonos and think they make fantastic gifts. I like to finish them as Christmas ornaments and use them for tags on presents

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Originally posted 2006-07-16 22:09:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter I had this “A” canvas hanging around the stash for years and years. I think I bought it at a Guild Auction (a great place to get canvases and projects). I suspect it was part of a class, and judging by the drawing on the canvas, the flowers, leaves and such were supposed to be ribbon embroidery. But I decided to make it as a quick present for my DD, who has a birthday coming up. And since the flowers were circles, I decided to make the whole thing Mary Englebreit-ish. I use Spring II in Baby Alisha for the background, black Splendor for the outline (oblique continental) and threads from the scrap bag for everything else. I only took me about three hours total to do. I’m getting a frame later this morning and framing it for her. I just

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Originally posted 2009-03-17 06:20:26. Republished by Blog Post Promoter I’m hoping by tomorrow morning I’ll be finished with this piece. But I wanted to share a completed corner. If you remember, I made my center too big and so I had to add two more rows in the corners. Since I didn’t want to repeat stitches, I chose new ones. The aqua is Triple Diagonal Brick and the pale coral **. Then I added corners in the two aquas with each block four Scotch Stitches. The border sides are two rows of Diagonal Gobelin in two of the corals. I had planned to do the two darkest shades, but I don’t have enough of the middle shade. As a result I’m using the lightest and darkest shades. Then I’m finishing with two rows of Continental in medium coral and charcoal. The whole thing will be inset into a pillow and

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OK, I admit it, I’m frustrated. YOu know that little vintage Petei design I’m making for a Christmas present? The one where I changed the colors. I am having a devil of a time with backgrounds. I’m no on my fourth and, I hope, final choice. I have cut out tons of stitching, but it’s instructive, so I thought today I would go through what I tried, why it didn’t work, and what I learned. Vertical Triple Parisian – I saw this in the current Needlepoint Now and since Triple Parisian is one of my favorites, I thought turning it to vertical would look good here. Wrong! With the lettering the scale of this stitch was just too big, even though it is a pretty small stitch. There isn’t enough uncluttered background here to get three repeats anywhere. The solution was to go with a smaller, more horizontal stitch, where

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Originally posted 2008-11-10 14:47:01. Republished by Blog Post Promoter I’m pleased as punch at getting this vintage (early 80′s) Euro San Francisco heart yesterday. Back when this design was new I stitched the mini-sock version for me Mom as a present in, yes, these colors. But I’m older now, possibly wiser, and I just love the notion of the heart and SF, so I’m planning on stitching it for my daughter. Just not in these colors, I want them to be realistic. So I’m thinking a foggy sky behind the Golden Gate bridge, a starry night sky behind the cable car, a street colored street, and proper cable car colors. Do we hear that Tony Bennett song in the background (as an aside they always play that over the loudspeakers after a Giants game at AT&T Park and I love watching the post game with the guys chatting about the

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Originally posted 2006-08-05 06:55:21. Republished by Blog Post Promoter As you can see above, the shadow stitching piece is done. I like the Shdow Stitching effect, but I really want to talk about another technique, my DH christened “Sketching with Thread” Often we are attracted to a hand-painted canvas because of the delicacy of the lines, they are so compelling. But stitch the canvas and all of a sudden those delicate lines become thick, solid and often dotted. Why? For several reasons: First, needlepoint stitches have a slant. If you keep the slant the same no matter the direction of the line, you will get solid lines in one direction and lines of bumps in the other. Second, in an unstitched canvas all lines will look thinner because there is the white space of the holes. Once a canvas is stitched the holes are filled. So how to preserve the

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Originally posted 2007-02-04 07:26:45. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI suppose you could say I’m clearly a child of the 70′s. I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA when the Steelers were great. As a result, I love football. I got married in 1980 in the SF Bay Area and so I got to watch a second great football dynasty (the 49er’s) in the 80′s. These days I don’t follow football all that much, but I do look forward to the SuperBowl and to the opportunity to stitch. It being Sunday, I’m going to start working on these amazing needlepoint pendants from FAS-stitch. They are new and have an elegant, modern brushed aluminum frame. You buy the kit, or the finishing service at your LNS, stitch and send it back. The one I’m doing is based on a Mondrian painting and is 1.5″ square. I’ll post a picture of it tomorrow and

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Originally posted 2009-07-14 06:50:22. Republished by Blog Post Promoter If you want to make a Scrap Bag Needlepoint from your stash and want it to have a coordinated look, there’s nothing better than pulling out all your threads in a particular color scheme. That’s what I chose to do for my version of the delightful abstract cross stitch you first saw awhile ago. I’m making it to go into my powder room and using a blue-violet and violet color scheme. There are also some accents based on Caron Collections Amethyst (pink and olive) and on the gray and brown undertones of the violet colors. But just randomly picking colors doesn’t always work, especially if you have a design such as this one which is busy and doesn’t have any background. If I picked all my threads in these color and just chose randomly, I’d end up with a mess. But

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My eldest daughter (and I) have a thing for Vera. If you are old enough, you’ll remember her bright colors and simple vibrant drawings on everything. I bought two vintage canvases, one of a strawberry and one of a daisy on eBay a week ago. They are big and they are quickpoint. That means BIG mesh. I’m waiting to see if it’s 10 or 7 mesh, but I suspect 7. They will be so cool on her white couch when they are done. But the mesh size means nothing in my stash will work on it. So my plan is to use knitting yarns. I have some knitting yarns in my stash but I think the only thing that will work is some thick cotton rope from Rowan that’s black. I don’t have much of it, but black is an accent on them anyhow. This will also give me an

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Counted Needlepoint is not one of my better things. Although I have successfully completed a few counted projects (namely Romance & Rhapsody), I avoid counted projects, largely because I don’t feel confident. Fixing this problem is one of my needlepoint resolutions for this year, but I haven’t done anything about it, except buy projects. One project I bought is Amazing Color from Needle Delights and, inspired by Liz at Dragonfly Lotus who is doing an Inchie a Day, I have started it. I’m not doing it in Kathy’s colors but in a spectrum of colors from burgundy in two corners to violet down the diagonal middle. Everything will be from my stash starting with overdyed floss as the main thread. I’m hoping to stitch 2 squares a day but want it done by December. I need the discipline, I need to learn this stuff, and I need to do some

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