Happy Birthday to Needlepoint Nation (Part One of Two)

Happy Birthday to Facebook's Needlepoint Nation group!  It turns nine years old today, February 7, 2020.  To celebrate and to help support the Hearts for Hospice program, Needlepoint Nation has released two free heart designs by Teri Ambritz.  If you are a member of Needlepoint Nation, you've seen Teri's amazing and inventive stitching.  She creates especially lovely backgrounds.  To help support Hearts for Hospice, she allowed me to diagram two of them to use as decorations for heart patterns.  Here is the first heart.  A second message today has the second heart diagram plus information about what you will need to stitch these yourself for a Hospice Heart.

You aren't familiar with the Hearts for Hospice program?  You can read about it here.
https://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com/2018/08/hearts-for-hospice.html

The first heart pattern is called Missy's Lace.  Here is the diagram.

The little orange dot in the middle of the diagram is the center.  Each colored block equals one tent stitch.  That section also has a section of dark gray blocks if you want to create "leaves" around the tiny flowers which have red centers and blue petals.

I suggest you do the framework first (the light gray rows in the diagram) and then add the flower motifs.

Framework First

This design can be done several ways.  In the photo below I am working the framework and floral motifs in red but I made one row of flowers blue.   You can leave the background canvas showing if you like.  In this photo the framework and the floral motifs are all in red tent stitches except for one row of flowers which I made blue for added interest.  None of the background is stitched.

Light Coverage with No Background

If you aren't a fan of light coverage, you can completely fill in the background with tent stitches as you can see below.

Full Coverage Background

To stitch Missy's Lace exactly as I did, you will need:

Two skeins of DMC's Etoile in red C816
One skein of DMC's Etoile in dark blue C823
One skein of DMC's size 5 perle cotton white B5200
9x9 piece of 18 count needlepoint canvas (any color)

Draw a heart pattern on paper that is about five inches tall and four wide, cut it out, then put the pattern under your canvas (you can hold it in place with magnets) and either draw or baste a line around the outer edge.

I encourage you to use colors you like from your leftover fibers.  And of course you can change the design around.  Here is Teri's version which adds stripes to the Missy Lace pattern.  Gorgeous!

Teri's Own Variation on Missy's Lace

Many thanks to Teri Ambritz for her brilliant designs, and to the Kansa City Chapter of the American Needlepoint Guild for their amazing Hearts for Hospice program.

And of course, Happy Birthday to Needlepoint Nation!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright January 30, 2020 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.