Need a Kit? Or a Magazine?

There are some fabulous kits (canvas, threads and stitch guide) available these days.  Remember the Floozies from Leigh Designs?  ThreadworX has done stitch guides that come with a thread pack for the first of the series and plans to stitch them all. Here's Alehouse Annie.  I want to go out partying with her!
http://threadworx.com/floozies

Terry Dryden has many of her teaching kits for sale. I've seen Whirlygig in person and it is fabulous!  Please note that Terry adds new kits to this page periodically so bookmark it to revisit occasionally.
http://www.terrydryden.com/gallery-of-designs-for-sale/

Stitchery Square has several Barbara Elmore kits for sale at 10 percent off.  I don't know if the prices on this page include the 10 percent or not.  You'll have to ask.
http://www.stitching.com/stitcherysquare/newfeatures.html

Jody Adams has quite a few copies of old Needlepoint Now magazines for sale at her Etsy store.  Most are $7 each (plus shipping and NYS tax if you live there), which is more than they usually go for on eBay but you may want an issue you haven't been able to find there.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/JODYdirect?section_id=6574942

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

Stars: Marlon Brando Block Done

How do you like Marlon?  I finished the block itself last night.  The rice stitch borders proved unexpectedly easy once I realized that each  corner and the two flanking triangles were stitched as a unit.  I'd tell anyone about to stitch Marlon to remember to turn your canvas so that each corner is in the same position as the chart in the book before you stitch, however.  It is really easy to get the positioning wrong if your canvas isn't oriented the same way as the diagram.

The colors gave me fits, though.  Tony asks folks to lay down the foundation, then tie the corners of the rice stitch crosses with four shades of crewel wool in color B. (He used Appleton crewel.)  My color B is black so getting four shades of black wasn't easy!

The first thing I did was change 2 strands of A4 (A is violet for me) into one strand of terracotta C5 (Impressions 3064). You may remember that in the last step, the little violet wings around the center square that I stitched were supposed to be terracotta.  I simply switched the colors so that my bottom layer was terracotta instead of violet.

I am not at all hesitant to change colors and threads on this piece since I choose my own colors and will have to deviate from the instructions to make this all work well together.  I would encourage anyone working this piece to take a similar approach.  If something isn't working the way you'd like, change it.

Then I worked with my black threads that tie down the underlying terracotta layer to try and make them get darker on the outside and lighter on the outside.  I did this with texture.

B3 makes up the inner tie downs.  Mine is Burmilana 3641 (a doubled strand) which is charcoal and slightly fuzzy.  B4 is the next set.  I used Gumnet's Tulips fine crewel wool in 999.  It is a darker black and fuzzier than the Burmilana.  Instead of using my B5 thread, I choose B7 for the next step.  This is my Trebizond silk perle in color 111, which is a glossy black that is smooth.  It's darker than the first two threads.  I ended the series with B2 instead of the B6 I'm supposed to use.  My B2 is Gold Rush 18 (color G031C) which is a lovely chainette thread in sparkling black.

I'm sure you can't tell much from the photos but in person this is a little darkening of the blacks in the corners.  That's the price I pay for choosing black as one of my colors.  Other folks will have a very pretty shading in their Marlon Brando corners.

The last step before I put this away for a while is to do the sashing below and to the right of Marlon and extend the outer black border a bit on the left side of this block.

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