Leigh Designs With Black Tweed

The last bit of news from the Leigh Designs e-newsletter deserves a posting of its own. A closeup photo of the new tweed canvas that Leigh used for her Ray's Moppet canvases was included. I grabbed it for you to see above. The holes sort of disappear unless the canvas is painted. That makes it easy to see how to stitch a Moppet in her bathing dress and makes it easy for the unpainted tweed background to appear solid. No background stitching! As someone with endless background around my Baroque Fish to stitch, I really do appreciate this.

You can see Ray's Moppets here on Leigh's website. Note how the background looks like fine wool tweed from a distance.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp503x.html

The story behind Ray's Moppets is a great one. Dr. Ray Endicott is a long-time customer of Leigh's and the idea came from him. He has stitched many a Leigh canvas and knows exactly what we needlepointers want when it comes to canvases. Many thanks to Dr. Ray for his inspiration!

You can read more about Dr. Endicott's needlepoint and see lovely photos here.
http://www.caron-net.com/03janfiles/jan03fea.html



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

Leigh Report (With Black Ice Garnish)

Leigh Designs' e-newsletter just arrived in my email box, just in time to distract me from more snow and particularly ice. See the nice clear driveway? It actually is covered in a thin layer of ice I can't even stand up on. I hate winter!

But Leigh has news of new Sundance bead colors and a little booklet called "Sundance Beads for Needlepoint" which explains the types of beads and stitches to use with them. Small enough to tuck into a pocket and not very expensive, so this is something to look for. It's not on the Sundance webite yet, but you can always browse the many colors and styles of beads and beading wire, not to mention painted canvases.
http://www.sundancedesignsonline.com/

Leigh noticed two other great new projects at the TNNA show--Zephyr 100% Merino wool from Aurora Yarns which Leigh thinks the size and texture of the discontinued Medici and which comes in overdyed and coordinating colors--and Thentix hand conditioner which is
non-greasy and which will not come off on your needlepoint. Thentix has a touch of honey and feels great. If you need a skin conditioner, you may want to try it out.

The links are below for more information. Please note that like Sundance, Aurora Yarns doesn't have anything on their website for their Zephyr wool yet. These are brand new products, just introduced at TNNA. And thanks to Leigh Designs, we know about them, too!

http://www.aurorayarns.net/

http://www.selectmarketing.us/index.php/Thentix.html

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