Why I'll Never Be a Professional Finisher, Part Two

Here you see the second piece of finishing foam, covered with my brocade fabric. Also in the photo is my fake ivory Buddha bead that I'll use to pull open the magnetic flap of the photo album which will be covered by my round piece of needlepoint. I cut a length of brown DMC linen thread, made a loop and stuck the loop through the bead with the loose ends coming out of the bottom. I then tied several knots to hold the bead and fringed the ends which weren't plied to begin with. I like the rough look of the linen with my brown suede photo album and the NP canvas itself.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Why I'll Never Be a Professional Finisher, Part One

This photo is the back side of Three Women and a Peach, trimmed to about an inch of bare canvas, and turned under over my piece of finishing foam. You can see I've pleated the bare canvas in places as I folded it back, then stitched the pleats to hold them. I started lacing a bit but that will need to wait until I slip the photo album's magnetic flap into the slot cut out of the finishing foam. Once I do that, I'll know how tightly to lace the canvas from top to bottom. I probably won't lace side to side because of the flap. I'll still need to remove the NP from the flap while I attach the back side piece of finishing foam that is covered with my brocade.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Amy News and Views

Another Amy Bunger newsletter is on her website, ready for download. This is a PDF file, so when you click on the January 2009 link under E-Newsletters, the file will open if you have the Acrobat software that opens PDFs on your computer. If you don't have Adobe's Acrobat, not to worry. There's a link on the E-Newsletter page to where you can download it for free.
http://www.amybunger.com/

This month's newsletter showcases some fabulous stitching Amy and her students have done, tells you there is going to be a Brenda Stofft trunk show this spring (please go see that and report back if you can--I love Brenda's designs!), there are photos of Tony Minieri's Room with a View that'll be taught at Amy's shop and his Journey to Satchadananda, stitched by someon in last year's Tony class, and more! Don't forget that every newsletter has a free stitch charted in it. This time there's a snowflake pattern, which is sadly too appropriate for many of us!

The last bit of newsletter news is the best--Amy's working on a new DVD. This time it's Barely There, all about those stitches that don't completely cover a canvas. This will be out at the trade show in 2-3 weeks and I'm told by Webmaster Robin that there will be a YouTube snippet from this DVD available fairly soon. If you've not seen the YouTube video of Amy taken from Mop Tops and Buzz Cuts (how to stitch hair and beards) do visit it here.
http://www.amybunger.com/amys_on_youtube.html

Don't forget to browse the website and check out the sale items in Amy's Attic. There are lots of new items, including a brand new photo of the finished Baby Jesus from the Kelly Clark Nativity Set that Amy's doing as a home study class this year. Himself is above--isn't that fabulous?!

There are four photos from the set available on Amy's website now (under Home Study). Use Next in the upper right just above the first picture to see them all. Amy's used 12 of the 17 items in the set. (There's a one piece Holy Family design that you can use instead of the three separate pieces or omit altogether.)
http://www.amybunger.com/albums/album_image/6366238/3808849.htm

Here is the whole set on Kelly Clark's website. I just love Nativity sets, especially the Wise Men!
http://www.kellyclarkneedlepoint.com/nativity

Thanks, Amy. I really enjoy your monthly newsletters.
Jane/Chilly Hollow

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow