useful tools Archive

Snap Trays are all the rage these days for storage, ort containers, and bead containers but did you know that you can make your own? The advantage here is that you can use fabrics in your stash and create it so it just the look and size you want. I found some wonderful internet resources to do just this. My Little Mochi has a tutorial to make a round snap tray using a plate a a pattern. Noodlehead’s tutorial makes three sizes of rectangular trays. The book Fabric One-yard Wonders has a snap travel tray as part of a set called “Jet Set.” A New Zealand company, Zippy Designs, has patterns for several in different sizes with different kinds of hand-quilting on them. Their pattern includes a template for the perfect placement of snaps. Craftsy has a free snap tray pattern as well. In the comments there was a good

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Coming in a variety of colors, the Handy Caddy is a practical and inexpensive answer to storing all your needlepoint tools and accessories. It’s made of clear plastic and is on a metal frame that folds flat. It’s 8″ high, 11″ wide, and 5″ deep so that it stores lots and you can reach everything. Lightweight the Handy Caddy won’t weigh you down as fabric bags or metal tins will. There are six small pockets on the outside with a large central bin. I found the smaller pockets perfect for things such as laying tools, pens, and my longer scissors. But they didn’t open enough to fit things such as my little tins of needles. They are best to use for long thin tools. The center pocket is quite roomy, the whole length and depth of the Handy Caddy. There is plenty of room to store your tools and even

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Can you use Q-Snaps for needlepoint? I know that they are popular for crosstitchers and quilters. I have also recommended them for people with problems gripping stretcher bars. Until Sunday, I hadn’t tried them myself. The big concern is that with Q-Snaps you need to have something big enough to put over the full rounds and cover with the partial rounds that snap into place. Once you do that the fabric stays tightly in place. That’s great for cross stitch and free embroidery but not so good for needlepoint where the margins aren’t so generous. My friend William Swords stitches on pre-finished canvases. He recommends Q-snaps for his pieces if you stitch in a frame. He put one together for me. His method of attaching the canvas is fantastic. It will work with any canvas that has a bound or finished edge, preferably sew under or sewn with seam binding.

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Tacking needlework onto stretcher bars is a fact of our stitching lives. Until recently my hands were strong enough to do the job. Now I need a tacking tool for needlework. It has come in the form of the EZ Tack-it Tool. Designed to be used in any application where tacks are used, it magnifies your strength to make it easier to insert and remove tacks. There are three components in the package, a box of brass tacks, a tack inserter and a tack remover. I tested all three. Tack Inserter For me, this was the biggest reason to buy the tool. I used it on both new and old stretcher bars and with several different kinds of tacks. It works like a champ. The rounded plastic head makes it easy to hold and comfortable to use. The head is large and heavy enough to press the tacks down with

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The K’s Creations metal stand, available in both floor and table models, is a wonderfully versitile stand. The swivel head allows you to move your canvas in so many directions. BeStitched has a customer’s video review of the stand on their site. The great thing about this review is that you can easily see how the swivel ball head works. Speaking from my own experience, it’s a great stand. I’ve had my model since it first came out. I’ve upgraded it to the swivel ball head and recently bought the adaptoer to use it as a table stand too. YOur choice of a floor stand is dependent on so many things (read my article about them here), but you could do much worse than this lovely stand

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Originally posted 2008-11-08 06:09:38. Republished by Blog Post PromoterA friend of mine is learning needlepoint and asked me a couple of days ago about ripping out. I explained to her that I use scissors with sharp points, a needle and tweezers, I cut a but from the back, pull the thread out with the tweezers or the needle. But what if that isn’t enough? As luck would have it, I stitched red on white canvas where it should have been white (I know, but I’m designing the piece). So this process, while it did a good job, left me with red fuzzies which needed to some out. I tried using my needle, but it couldn’t catch many of the threads. That’s when I turned to Judy’s Boo-Book Stick. It has two ends, one which looks like a mascara spoolie brush and one which looks like an overgrown dental brush. The

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My husband went to nursery and grammar school at a school run by Sacred Heart nuns before they modernized their habits. He remembers vividly a nun, in her long habit going around with a tool belt around her waist because she was the convent’s handyman. While our tools don’t require strapping on a belt, we can all use a needlepoint tool box, much as that nun no doubt had an old-fashioned tool box in her workshop. What’s in your toolbox is really up to your habits. You might be like I am most of the time, keeping your tools in all kinds of places, but putting everything in one place does make your life simpler. In my supply drawer or on my desk I keep multiples of most of this stuff. I have a metal tin I can pack with the items I need for a class. I also have

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The 6-light Beam N’ Read Light has been improved and to celebrate, they will give away a light to one lucky blog reader in the US or Canada. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post before 11 PM (Pacific) on October 26, 2012. I’ll pick one winner at random to win the light. Let me tell you about the changes in the light. The switch now allows you toggle between 3 & 6 lights, giving two levels of illumination. The neck strap has been upgraded for greater comfort. The orange filter has been shifted to be similar to a camera filter than converts daylight to incandescent-type light by reducing blue light. So the BNR LED 6-3 provides a choice of cool daylight-type light (no filter); warm, incandescent-type light (orange filter); or red light (red filter). The batteries last longer: up to 50 hours

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Originally posted 2008-12-01 09:49:44. Republished by Blog Post PromoterI’m reading a lovely book, The Gentle Art of Domesticity by Jane Brocket. The last chapter, on Travel, has an article about her Urban Knitters Survival Kit. It occurred to me that needlepointers should have the same. The best thing would be to tuck all this up into a neat tin, but you could also, as I do, put the bits and pieces into the current project bag. Most of these things I have, but some I need to add to my kit. Needles and storage for same. I used to run out of needles often. Now I carry them all with me, all the time. Protected in a pretty, secure case. My favorite cases are those “silk” lipstick cases. They have hard shells, snap shut and are small. Needle threaders. I find as I get older these are more and more

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I bet you have always thought that as a needlepointer going to places like the drug store, hardware store or office supply store was a part of the rest of your life. A dreary necessity that had to be endured. I generally think so too, but in fact all these places hold lots of wonderful (and inexpensive) things you can use to make your needlepoint life easier, more organized, and more fun. Office Supply Store If you haven’t gone out and bought yourself a lever style staple remover go do it. For anyone who uses staples or tacks to attached canvas to a frame, this is an invaluable tool saving nails and manicures. The thin tip of the lever goes under the staple or tack and pressing down on the other end lifts it. Finding places to store needles can always be a problem. You can make yourself an elegant

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For many needlepointers table and floor stands can be a real problem. They are bulky and expensive and often require lots of work to use. However there are a couple of alternatives which you should consider as lower cost and more compact solutions. The first possibility is found at your local hardware store. It is made by Stanley and is called a handi-clamp. These clamps have the equivalent of a C-clamp (which you can also use) at one end, but they have a kind of trigger mechanism at one end which makes them easier to open and shut. You put your frame and the table edge in between the jaws of the clamp and press to shut. The needlepoint stays secure next to the table so you can stitch. I se many people using these at guild events. They are certainly lighter and less clumsy than my table frame. Another

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Although it might sound old-fashioned or romantic, doing needlepoint by candlelight or oil lamp is probably not a good idea. And if you are stitching on fine mesh canvas or are older, stitching under the light of a table lamp might also be a bad idea. In many ways, I’m lucky because my stitching chair is in a room with lots of natural, but indirect, light, so I can easily see my needlepoint in its true colors without a lamp. But even so, often you have little or no control over the light in a classroom or at a shop. For many stitchers the solution is to get a specialized lamp for stitching. These break down into basically three types — magnifying lamps, “true color” lamps, and task lamps. Task Lighting and Magnifiers Task lamps have been around the longest. These are small lamps which send a bright light onto

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Originally posted 2010-08-15 07:45:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter If you work in hand instead of on stretcher bars or scroll frames, keeping your canvas flat and neat when not stitching can be a problem. That’s especially true with smaller items. Thanks to Denise from Craft Gossip, I want to share with you this charming Needlework Keeper you can make yourself. It’s from All Thing Vintage and the instructions are available in this tutorial

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For many stitchers, myself included, using a laying tool can be a problem. I can think of so many reasons why: you have to use a stand because you need two hands, it’s awkward, they are pointy, and so on. But the improvement they give in the look of your needlepoint should trump our reluctance. While ther are many types of laying tools (read some of my posts abut them here and here), Joni Stevenson has done us all a tremendous favor by her in-depth article about laying tools. She shows us, withh her wonderful close-up photos, how to use them correctly and why we should. It’s a great post, check it out

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I learned about these lovely bags in Needlepoint Now & immediately wanted to find out more. I’ve had a lovely email conversation with Barb Garrana, the maker of these custom bags. I am really impressed with them and with her. Throughout the article, the pictures you see are of her bags. You can contact her for more information or to order a bag at bgbagsbybarb.com. Each bag is custom-made. Barb explains it this way: “Each bag is themed, using 4-6 different fabrics and a limited number of each fabric combination is made. This keeps in interesting for both the customer and myself. The themes reflect user’s areas of interests, e.g. travel, gardening, cowboys, cooking etc. I am constantly collecting new fabrics so if a customer has a theme in mind I am happy to try to accomodate them.” The bags are 18″ tall x 15″ wide by 5″ deep (excluding

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