Christmas in July 2009

Yesterday was my annual road trip to the Xmas in July sale at Needlewoman East. Grab your beverage of choice, put up your feet and ride along with me.

I almost always arrive early since the trip to NW East can take me anywhere between 75 and 120 minutes one way. I have to assume that it's going to take forever with traffic so I got there before the 10 a.m. start. This is what I found outside the store--Liz the owner (standing) and the former owner Sue Jenning's sister Sally (seated) having their last minute cigarette before the madness begins. Sally holds a gorgeous Melissa Shirley dragonfly canvas that a fellow shopper --who ducked out of the photograph, gosh she is fast on her feet!--planned to kit out with threads during the bargains. I had my own canvas to pull threads for and we had a happy 15 minutes dodging each other at the Gloriana silk rack.

The lady on the right is the luckiest woman on the planet. I ran into her browsing the charts. She was on this side of town "running an errand for a friend" and decided on a whim to drop in the store to look at the counted thread instructions. She asked me what everyone was doing crowded into the shop and learned that she had decided to show up at the best sale of the year. Her eyes are closed because she is laughing uncontrollably as I told her what was up, dropped to my knees and took her photo for Blog. Lady, this is what happens when you do favors for your friends. Live right and a sale drops into your lap!

By the way, I found Ruth Dilts' Mystic among the charts on the bookshelves and bought it. I've been drooling over this piece for a while and finally overcame my fear of counted thread. It is stunning in green so I might have to try it in blues...

http://www.ruthdiltsdesign.com/newest.html

I wanted threads and beads for a project this fall so I rummaged around, picking out bargain silk perle, looking for Kreinik colors I hate to run out of, etc. Liz has the new #12 Kreinik (perfect for 13 count) overdyed metallics from ThreadworX, by the way. There were a lot of happy folks chatting, pulling threads, grabbing that expensive canvas they have lusted after since the last sale, and looking over the Evertites and floor stand and the catalogue for the shelving system of their dreams. I ran into a man whose current project has 95 different colors who is in great need of organization and we talked about the Container Store's and other versions of rolling thread carts. Hope something I said helps, guy!

I took a few moments to look at the current CBK Needle Collection truck show because they own rights to one of my favorite designers, Edie & Ginger. This photo shows the diversity of the designs they handle. An Edie & Ginger Three Wise Men stocking is below a Get the Point sugar skull canvas (it comes in pink, too!). I wish I had browsed longer since I discovered the geishas that Get the Point does on their website later. I would like to have seen these in person. To browse, click on the Canvas of the Day photo to go to the CBK website. Lots to see there! By the way, the geishas you see on the right are a long rectangle of three from Edie & Ginger. It's lovely but I couldn't get the whole thing into the photograph and still have enough detail for you to see what I did. {I decided I had better include the CBK website address here for those who don't read this blog entry today.]

http://www.cbkneedlepointcollections.com/ProdList.php?page=2&cId=8&cpId=11

My final fun NW East photo is from when I made it to the front of the checkout line. I found these in the glass case where one pays. They are called Needle Bling--tiny jewels set in a magnet to hold your needles. They come in single crystals (see link below) or

http://store.apneedlearts.com/needlebling.html

in tiny shapes like butterflies or strawberries set with sparkling jewels. The single jewels cost about $5 and the shapes with many crystals cost around $10. Click on the tiny photos for a better look at some of the choices. These are distributed by the Elizabeth Turner Collection but they are not on their website.

http://www.amybunger.com/accessories.html

My favorite was the tiny hand delicately holding blue diamonds that might be a flower. Very Victorian! Although the little crown was durn cute.... I did not buy, though. I have plenty of magnets already and I had a second stop in mind=Waste Knot! Since I live so far from shops and these two are within a ten mile radius of each other and since the shop owners have a Communist Plot going to completely empty my wallet (they carry very different stitching things) I drove over to see what Lori had in stock to tempt me.

Somehow I got through the Kathy Schenkel trunk show (those little mini stockings with stuffed animals are wonderful--for proof look at the header of Blog which features the hospitality stocking) without buying anything but I did have to buy a new book. Are you familiar with Julia Snyder's three little tall and narrow books of stitches? I've never seen them in person before but Lori had all three in stock. I took home "Backgrounds" and will do a book review when I've had time to read it. You can see the covers and pick up a copy for yourself online at Amy Bunger's store.

http://www.amybunger.com/books.html

There were new threads at Waste Knot and boy, did I have fun looking at them! The photoon the right is of EdMar's boucle, a twisted and kinky (not in that way, get your mind out of the gutter!) rayon thread used in Brazilian embroidery. Wouldn't the pastel overdyes make gorgeous flower beds or a hanging basket?! I love the shades of green available. This is a new thread to me. It is supposed to be couched mostly but I think long stitches and loose French knots would work also and one might even try bullions. It wouldn't matter that they were messy as the whole point of this thread is to give the effect of flowers or flower centers. Mother Nature is often not even and symmetrical. Here's a close up look at boucle.

http://www.edmar-co.com/catalog/threads/boucle.html

And here are some of the colors available.

http://www.nordicneedle.com/CTGY/I03-01-00.html

The other "new" thread at Waste Knot is an old favorite from GlissenGloss, Estaz. This is a fuzzy thread that is sort of like a feather boa made of thin cuts of nylon. It is perfect for couching and for long stitches as well. Got a witch who needs a bad hair day? Estaz is perfect! I was very glad to see it as they have new colors and only the counted thread place that closed carried it in the past. I took a photo of a range of colors but there are many more available, all loud and glittery and glitzy. Lori thinks the two sizes of packages contain the same amount of thread but the new large clear envelopes don't have a thread amount on the label. You can see more colors here.

http://www.juliesxstitch.com/oscart/index.php?cPath=22_329

The final photo isn't of a thread that I saw at either shop (although it is on order for Waste Knot) but since we talked about it there, I thought I would post photos of some samples I've received courtesy of a fellow threadaholic. This is Memory Thread from DMC.

It is a thread wrapped copper wire, a bit smaller than #5 cotton perle and a bit larger than #8 cotton perle. You can bend it into endless shapes. I think it is perfect for couching a name on a Christmas stocking, for bendable flower petals and leaves, for twisting grapevines, etc. The photo above shows some of the colors available. I hope you can see the silver and gold. I think from studying the DMC website that there are various diameters of this thread-wrapped wire but I can't be sure. It is marketed for jewelry and scrapbooking and other crafts. If you find it locally, study the package carefully to see what you are getting. I think the Desire line of memory thread has thicker wire inside. Some types of memory thread may be acid free. Sorry I can't be more exact about this but the DMC website doesn't make it easy to know exactly what the differences are in the various lines of "memory thread."

http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=4918538

Once I stitch with this I'll report back but you should read what Judy Harper said about it on her blog when she stitched with it.

http://fairy-crafts.blogspot.com/2009/05/patchwork-with-dmc-showing-new-threads.html

Well, this is about enough road trip for the day. I did finish stitching the square liquor bottle on the shelf in Cape Cod Dogs last night and I'd like to finish up the shelves themselves today so I'd better get started on that. Hope you had fun at the Christmas in July sales with me.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow