One of the most common questions I hear these days about a painted canvas is whether there is a stitch guide for it. Here are the top five places to answer that question!
Number Five: Ask your favorite shop. Many will do a stitch guide for you if you buy the canvas (or at least the threads in the guide) from them. Others may have seen a guide at a trade show or heard about it through the shop owner grapevine. They are your best friends when you are seeking a stitch guide.
Number Four: Check the designer's website to see if there is a guide already. Many designers have a section of their website that lists available guides. Some of them are free for download right at the site. Examples are Leigh Designs on Fleur de Paris, Kelly Clark on Colonial Needle, Melissa Shirley and Needle Deeva, but there are many more. If you fall in love with a canvas, head to the designer's site and check.
Number Three: Ask your stitching friends on the ANG email list or at Needlepoint Nation on Facebook. Use the power of social media to see if anyone knows about a guide.
Number Two: Check the main stitch guide writers' sites to see what they have done. Amy Bunger, Robin King, and Tony Minieri have written hundreds of stitch guides. Amy has an online catalogue at her site and so does Robin King. Pat Miller and Sandy Arthur also list guides on their sites. Also keep an eye on Robin's Facebook page where she posts new guides as she completes them. For Tony Minieri, you will have to email the Edwardian Needle and ask. They'll check with Tony and get back to you, but remember, Edwardian Needle is only open Wed-Saturday and Tony travels frequently to teach. You won't hear back instantly. Here are the links--
http://www.amybunger.com/amys_catalog.html
http://duodesignsinc.com/wpsite/stitch-guides-only
http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/p/stitch-guides-by-robin-king.html
http://www.theedwardianneedle.com
https://www.facebook.com/robin.king.562
http://needleartnut.blogspot.com/p/available-stitch-guides.html
Number One: [drumroll please!} The number one place to find if your canvas has a guide is the CH Stitch Guides Blog, maintained by me. It not only lists my stitch guides, it lists most of the guides I've heard about. Use the search box at the upper left hand corner to explore. Here is the link, or click on the magic carpet photo in the right hand column to be magically carried there from Blog. Click again to return to Blog.
http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
You can also email me at sgfromchnp at gmail dot com for help finding a guide or someone to write a custom stitch guide for you. These days, you are never without a guide for a painted canvas unless you want to be.
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright 2014 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.
2 comments:
I am keeping a separate tab on the blog for guides that I write too. I write for Leigh Designs and am also doing custom guides as well if people want to contact me. Thanks for doing this!
Whoops! Forgot you, Pat. I'll amend the above to add your link so that folks can look there, too.
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