snowbears needlepoint, stitch guide by janet perry
Sometimes I think that writing stitch guides and helping you find the stitches and threads that make your visions of the canvas a reality is the reason I started doing needlepoint. Before needlepoint I was crazy about yarn, thread, fiber, and color. About as soon as I started stitching in 1970 I fell in love with the idea of stitches. When I started doing painted canvases in the early 80′s that furnished the last piece of the picture.
I see needlepoint canvases and I start to think about how they can be stitched, writing stitch guides in my mind even for things I glance through on eBay. Put a canvas in my hand and it’s even worse.
Combine these things together with your canvas, your skill level, your threads, and your ideas and you get one of my custom stitch guides.
My guides are customized to you and through our email conversations I’ll fit the guide exactly to you. Have you already bought threads for the canvas? I’ll use them as much as possible. Do you have a stash of a thread that hasn’t been made for more than a decade? I’ll incorporate it. Hate straight stitches or love glitz? They become part of the guide.
And you’ll get more than that. My guides aren’t just a map of what stitch goes where, they are a class in stitching that canvas and more. I’d like to help you do your own guides by sharing my knowledge with you, so along the way I’ll share tips, suggestions on how to do things, and places where you can use these stitches and techniques again.
Yes, this takes time. No, I don’t require you to buy the canvas from me. No, I don’t sell threads (but I can give you suggestions for where to find them). But I do want you to love needlepoint. I do want you to stitch that canvas and you won’t do that if the guide is too hard or too sketchy.
But most of all I want this to be affordable. How will you get that vision in thread done if the price of the guide is too high?
That’s why I’ve made the commitment to price my full guides (thread list, instructions, and stitch diagrams) starting at $65. Many people charge $50 an hour or more for guides without text or even just for pulling threads. Some people charge that for a ready-made guide, not a custom one.
Like all designers in this business I am concerned about copyright infringement. But there are many approaches to this problem. One approach is to raise prices, that changes the price/value equation in one way. If it’s so expensive it must be really good.
The approach I have chosen is to customize the guides. This changes the price/value equation so that the value is related to you and is great. And, with the price low, you find that there is much more value for your money.
But I want to change the image of needlepoint. I want to make it affordable. If you want a guide created just for you at a price you can afford, fill out my custom stitch guide form. There are also lower cost options available for smaller or less complex canvases.
And always, always, the estimates are free.
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