Flowers by Sign of the Arrow

Sign of the Arrow in St. Louis is posting free flower ideas in their shop newsletter.  The first lesson explains messy beading and how to create petals with long stitches arranged in a circle.

http://signofthearrow.com/news/Flower%20Tutorial%20from%20Birdhouse.pdf

Their second posting covers very simple silk ribbon petals and brick stitch over two.

http://signofthearrow.com/news/Flower%20Tutorial%20from%20Bloom.pdf

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow

Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com

and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com

© Copyright April 19, 2021 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Beading the Robin King Way UPDATED AGAIN

Anyone who has ever attempted (or plans to attempt) to add beads to their needlepoint canvas will want to read Robin King's latest blog entry. It's all (and I mean ALL) about beading!
http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/2017/07/stitch-beading-with-robin.html

Thank you for sharing your hard-won expertise, Robin!

UPDATE:  Robin has done a lesson on brick stitch beading in her next blog posting.  What fun!

http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/2017/08/bricked-beading-aka-beaded-brick-stitch.html

UPDATE #2:  The last beading lesson from Robin talks about messy beading, beaded fringe, a line of beads, a stack of beads, lasso beading. and piggy backing beads to make dots.
http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/2017/08/beading-wrap-up.html

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright July 31, 2017 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

A Toast to Beads

Suzanne just finished a wonderful Raymond Crawford champagne flute, a sort of New Year's toast of a canvas.  It's a toast to beads, with three different beading techniques to create sparkle.
http://suzannehicks.blogspot.com/2015/04/heres-to-usa-champagne-toast.html

The background is done in brick stitch beading, which is just brick stitch with a bead added to each stitch before you take the needle to the back side.  The baubles on the table are Suzanne's piled on bead technique, which is just what she says--piles of beads.  The third beading technique is to do tent stitches on the glass, adding a bead to each stitch before taking the needle to the back side.  After she finished a row of beaded tent stitches, she threaded the needle through the row of beads to straighten them slightly.  (Beads are wiggly things.)

Bet in person this is fabulous but cameras are notoriously blind to beads and bling.  We'll use our imagination in this homage to beads instead.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright April 16, 2015 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Santa Faces (Not Blue Russian)

I promised when I started blog-stitching the Northern Light Santa that I would talk about things that would work on other Russian Santas in the series. So this morning I want to talk about faces a little more, especially faces for the other three Santas in this series.  Take a careful look at the faces of all the series.
http://www.leighdesigns.com/Grp833x.html

The Holly Hills and Forever Green Santas face the viewer directly.  The Birdland Santa's face is turned slightly, but only slightly.  This makes all three good candidates for brick stitch over two faces, although if it were me, I'd do this on Birdland Santa because his face is larger.  You do need some space for the Over Two length, after all.  If you find brick stitches too large, basketweave is the way to go for these Santas except for their eyebrows and the black eyeliner area.  That probably should be done with one ply of a thread in stem stitches or perhaps a few straight stitches on top of the area after the basketweave is done.  I always use silk flosses when I can for faces but silk perle is just as nice and of course cotton flosses and perles are almost as good, just without the shine that silk gives a face.

Here is a diagram of Brick Stitch Over Two.  This is one of my favorite ways to attach beads so the diagram shows beads as well as just the plain Brick Stitch Over Two.  A bonus!

Next Monday I will be ready to talk background for my Blue Russian.   Hopefully folks will have their Santas by now and can start stitching faces and assembling threads for the rest of their canvas.


Questions?  Email me at chillyhollow@hotmail.com and I'll get back to you within a day or so.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
@ Copyright 2013 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.