Brenda Stofft Trunk Show & Sale

Needle Nook of La Jolla has four pages of Brenda Stofft designs to admire in a trunk show (which means a 20% discount off the listed price). I'm a big fan of her work and the trunk show has things I've never seen on her website. Here's the trunk show.

http://www.needlenookoflajolla.com/storedir/products.php?cat=206

Here's Brenda's website.

http://www.brendastofftdesigns.com/

By the way, the photo above is the Santa on a Panda canvas photo from page three of the NN of LJ trunk show. He's very Asian, isn't he? I put another photo up on my main blog (link below). The photo there is of the finished Summer Hare from Brenda's four canvas seasonal hare set. You can see it on her website under the Rabbit section. The seasonal rabbits aren't sold separately, so this is a particularly good time to buy if you are interested in the series.

I love a good sale!

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

No Calorie Needlepoint

I got the latest little brochure from Pocket Full of Stitches in the mail last week. It announced their summer classes, retreats and of course the newest canvas of the month clubs planned for the summer into next winter. This information isn't up on their website yet but you can see some of the canvases for the newest monthly club on Raymond Crawford's website. Click on Finishing, then prepare to be amazed.

http://www.raymondcrawford.com/


Remember his NP cakes from a few years back? They were tiered like wedding cakes and full of fun. (If you haven't seen them, click on Designs and choose Cakes.) Now PFOS is going to be selling kits for Raymond's themed cupcakes, which have a round rop and curved sides, and which you can customize to your heart's content without worrying about your diet, healthy eating, or anything else except indulging your needlepoint sweet tooth.

Of course the Little Shoppe Canvas Company has carried NP pastries, cookies (including gingerbread men) and fruits for a while now. If you don't like cupcakes, you might find something equally fun and equally food at their website.

http://www.littleshoppecanvascompany.com/indexhome.html


A Collection of Designs has had decorated "sugar cookie" canvases for years. These are classics, with a very large selection of designs to choose from. The second link has cupcakes in a different style.


http://www.acollectionofdesigns.com/cookies%20page%201.htm

http://www.acollectionofdesigns.com/merry_christmas_6.htm

If small isn't what you like to stitch, how about stitching the cookie maker from Melissa Shirley?

http://melissashirleydesigns.com/gallery/?index=1247&cat=69



By the way, the photo illustrating this blog entry is Denise's Bitten Cookie, taken from the Elaine Magnin website, which is a durn good place to search on "cookie" or "baker" to browse for some non-fat delights.

http://elainemagninneedlepoint.stores.yahoo.net/bitcookor.html

Happy eating, uh, stitching.

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Update on Autumn Leaves

I’ve nearly finished the right half of Autumn Leaves, working various areas as I jump around from leaf to background to another leaf. For the left half of the design, I plan to turn the canvas upside down (in relationship to Lani’s signature) and start working the whole thing in basketweave from the upper right hand corner (or what will be upper right once the canvas is standing on its head) down to the side that has been stitched. I will do the whole thing in one large section so we can compare working jumping around to simply starting in one place and working the whole design from that point. You can see in the photo above that I have worked most of the left and started in the lower left hand corner to basketweave the other half.

How am I going to do this? Big hint--magnets!

You’ll also see if you look carefully that there is a bit of a green leaf edge showing on the right bottom. This design is the center of a larger one that had green in it and that bit still shows. I will make it either brown or red as the spirit moves me by just choosing a thread for that small area. Can’t decide? Put your skein of red on the canvas there and step back. How does it look? Then switch to a skein of ivory or tan and again back away to give yourself some distance. Generally one color looks slightly better. If not, feel free to flip a coin because if you can’t see a preferred color, it doesn’t matter which one you make that little green leaf.

But for now I must say that everything looks pretty good, particularly since I stitched the finished part of Autumn Leaves in various sessions with a lot of types of threads. The goal has been to make each tent stitch look like all the rest--same size and tension. So far, so good. But occasionally I do loose concentration and some stitches are not pulled down as flat as the others. If this happens, I use a 4 inch length of Kreinik #8 metallic thread that I keep in my stitching toolbox. It’s just a piece of thread, a leftover from some project. It has no knot in the end, it is just a straight lenght of thread. When I have a tent stitch that doesn’t seem to be pulled down properly, I use my Kreinik to fix the problem.

First, thread up your needle and then figure out the down hole for your problem stitch. Once you know where to plunge the needle, just pull the metallic thread through. Kreinik is just rough enough that it will catch your thread and pull it towards the back.

This tip (My dear friend Mimi learned it on the ANG list some years back and told it to me-Thanks, Mimi!) often fixes a tent stitch that needs adjusting. It doesn’t always work, and some threads are tender enough (flat silk, for example) that a rough thread will make the situation worse, not better. But before you rip, try a little piece of metallic. After all, Kreinik is your friend!

Before I stop, I should say that since we’re half way through this all-tent stitch project, I’m already planning the next step in my stitching adventure. My Yahoo 360 blog allows me to post multiple photos in the left column header and there you will see two Squiggee canvases that will be the next stop in the Chilly Hollow NP adventure. I have finishing to do, so I thought I’d finish another small ornament myself, then start up one of the small ornaments I want to stitch. I also have three huge projects I’ve put aside while blog exploits took over I want to get back to. If everything works well, I will make up some of the small ornaments I finished last winter, start on the two little Squiggee canvases, and finish at least one of the Big Three.

Stay tuned!

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Knots or Not?

I’ve been promising to talk about starting threads for a while now. It’s a complicated subject. You can start a thread by putting a knot on the back side. You can also start stitching by putting a knot on the front side and stitching over the thread that goes from the knot to where you start your first stitch, or you can start stitching without a knot at all. I’ve used all three techniques on Lani’s Autumn Leaves and I think which one you choose depends on the threads, the area to be stitched and your own personal preference. Let me explain.

You’ve probably heard of away knots, or in line knots, or waste knots. These are all knots put in various places on the top of the canvas. The thread runs from the knot on top of the canvas along the back and then comes up where you plan to start stitching. Once you have finished that area, the knot is trimmed off. You do that by pulling up on the knot and cutting the thread as close to the canvas as you can. You can look at various types of starting top knots at these websites.

http://needlepoint.about.com/od/learnneedlepoint/ss/wasteknot.htm

http://www.needlepoint-for-fun.com/basic-needlepoint-stitches.html

http://www.needlepointnow.com/OnLineClassroom/ACSK-3/CanvasPrep.htm

To some extent, which you choose is a matter of personal taste. (Although Shay Pendray never puts her thread more than an inch away from her first stitch and she makes sure she will stitch right over it when she starts.) I don’t use any of these top knot techniques much, although I did use waste knots with the dark brown vein when I started the first brown leaf Using top knots works especially well if you are stitching straight lines or in a straight row. I tend to start my first few stitches on a canvas using waste knots but after a while I abandon them. People who are very careful with the back sides of their designs like the knot on top techniques as they do make for a tidier back. Me, I don’t care. I lavish most of my effort on the front and let the back take care of itself.

I am careful about the knots I tie in a thread that I’m starting, however. If you plan to put a knot on the back of a canvas, make it a small and dense knot. Ever tied a knot and had it turn out with a loop at the end or a much bigger balled knot that you’d planned? Those I trim with my scissors or cut off and replace with a smaller and denser knot. I don’t like a lot of lumps on the back and a knot is rather lumpy. To some extent this technique works best on natural fibers.

I find it easier to tie knots in cotton or silk or wool fibers than I do metallics or nylon threads. Some threads are slippery (Remember how Panache slips out of the needle eye?) and their knots will untie themselves sometimes. If you have a thread like that, consider another starting technique. If your thread is very stiff, like Japan Gold or twist, for example, you can’t tie a knot in it at all. You have to put a loose tail on the back and secure it with stitches taken through the threads already on the back of the canvas and over the loose tail.

Some of these problems can be solved by using techniques that don’t involve knots at all. See the photo above? Thats a double strand of my Impressions, which I’m using for the tan leaves and the purple backgrounds. Any time you are stitching with two strands of a thread you can make a loop “knot” to start the thread. All you do is cut double the length of thread that you normally stitch with. If you use a 24 inch length of thread in your needle, cut twice that, or 48 inches. Then put both ends in the needle’s eye as above. Come up through your canvas but don’t pull the thread all the way through. Just leave enough of the doubled end on the back that you can put the needle through the middle of the loop once you put the needle back down through your canvas. Pull to tighten the thread and the loop will close and secure the threads. This is the technique I used for all the areas on Autumn Leaves where I used Impressions since I doubled the strand to cover and match the other stitches in other types of threads.

Of course once you start a thread, you are going to have to end it eventually when it runs out or when you need to switch to another color. But that’s a topic for another day.

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Changing Yet Again

Once again I've changed the look here at Blogspot. I decided that the black letters on a green background might be hard on the eyes and I was pretty sure that the title didn't show up well against the green spring dogwood photo I used behind it. I've been studying the changes I made last week on various computers, and certainly things looked better on some monitors than others. But on some the changes I made to increase legiblity actually decreased it. Then I started thinking, this is a needlepoint blog, so why not use images of NP?

So I rummaged around, looking for photos of completed pieces which were the right dimensions for the header (which I can't change unless I grow better HTML skills than what I currently possess) and came up with the Anne Jerlow geishas stitched for the ANG Auction last year in Baltimore. The design is an outlined canvas by the late Anne Jerlow. Five of the geishas are above. I gave them all names and identities as I stitched them.

They are, left to right, the spoiled little rich girl Willow Geisha (the stitching of whose kimono gave me fits), the Tomboy Geisha with her plainer outfit based on male kimono patterns, The Bride in her fancy kimono modeled after Klimt's paintings and fancy headdress, the Yellow Fan Geisha who is the Bride's best friend, and the elegant Famous Geisha whose purple kimono is the fanciest and most expensive of them all.

The Famous Geisha is the successful best friend of the black Mother of the Bride Geisha canvas below that serves as my profile image. The Famous Purple Geisha and the Mother of the Bride Geisha are identical in Anne's canvas outline drawing but I stitched them as totally different people.

They were a lot of fun to stitch and now live with Barbara Hayden in Texas who placed the winning bid at the ANG Auction.

Hope you like the changes, but even more importantly, I hope they are easy on the eyes!

Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow