Stitching Skies, Pugs and Fancy Stitches (with Common Threads)

The tips from professional needlepointers on their blogs keep coming--in alphabetical order we have:

ABS Designs' Anne Stradal explains how she stitches skies with needle blended colors and simple stitches.
http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/01/needle-blending-sky.html

Gail Hendrix of Squiggee Designs demonstrates that you can do wonderful things on 10 count as well as 18 count NP canvas. Folks with bad vision all over the world rejoice!
http://squiggeedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/01/pug-anyone.html

This is after Gail shows us how to use commonly available threads to great effect on her newest canvas, an iris circle.
http://squiggeedesigns.blogspot.com/2009/01/squiggee-is-stitchingthe-moon-is-green.html

Judy Harper also discusses this topic in her dissertation on cotton threads.
http://fairy-crafts.blogspot.com/2009/01/tutorial-for-cotton-thread-bargello-egg.html

Finally Orna Willis has added an explanation of Jessicas with a great diagram to her website's collection of instructional PDFs. I found out about this on her blog that had the link to here--
http://www.ornadesign.com/how-to

The above proves once again that stitchers are wonderfully sharing folks!

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

January 2009 Chilly Hollow Newsletter Article

Baby, it's COLD outside! I don't know about you, but this is the time of year I park myself in front of football on the tv and stitch my brains out.

If you want to read a good book instead, how about this new South African book that shows how to enhance Cicely Mary Barker's little flower drawings into ribbon embroidery and stumpwork?n Click on the Periwinkle Fairy at the bottom of the page to see how one design turned out. After you get the larger image, click on the magnifying glass icon and then move your mouse around to see details.
http://www.dicraft.co.za/books.php#ff

Another fabulous book from overseas is Trish Burr's long-and-short stitched flowers from Pierre Joseph Redoute's botantical watercolors. Beautiful!
http://www.trishburr.co.za/books.htm

If any of this inspires you to stitch and you need stitch ideas, a lot of bloggers are posting diagrams and closeup photos of stitches they are using. Let's start with the designer Barbara Bergsten's blog. She is doing another sampler with explicit instructions and charts for each stitch. She even tells you the order she stitched a complicate stitch in and gives you tips on the use of color.
http://createneedlepoint.typepad.com/

Summer Louise Truswell, famous for her finishing skills, is now doing a Stitch A Week for us, with the latest being cross stitches. There's a bonus if you keep reading earlier blog postings--she is also showing what she is stitching on a large Amanda Lawford stand up Santa. The design is fabulous! Use the links under Previous Posts to find earlier Stitches of the Week and also see more of the Royal Santa and some of her finishing.
http://www.summerlouise.com/blogger.html

The final blogger with fun stitches and projects to enjoy and learn from is Sue Dulle of SD Designs. She shares her snowman collection and the stitches she is using for her latest addition to the group (look for the January 4 blog entry). I especially love the little glimpses into her house and the antiques she enjoys and I'm definitely going to use some of her lovely snowman stitches.
http://sudukc.wordpress.com/

Stay warm, stitch a lot and be inspired by the great books and stitchers we have visited today.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Sackboy Knitting Instructions from The Sun

I am not a knitter. No time and no one here to help me over the rough spots, but I am tempted by these instructions to attempt to knit myself a Sackboy. You may remember my Christmas Day ramblings about the video game Little Big Planet which features this little knitted character and the ability to create your own environments. Now the British paper The Sun has provided a link to a PDF file with the instructions by Alan Dart which were originally in the January 2009 issue of Simply Knitting magazine.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fun/gizmo/article2056598.ece

So get busy knitting Sackboys (or Sackgirls) for your gamer friends and relatives!

By the way, the darling Sackboy above was knit by I Like Lemons who is currently knitting olives. Here's the blog link.

http://i-like-lemons.blogspot.com/

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Anne is Ready for Tea Now

Anne Stradal (she's the owner of ABS Designs) has finished her vacation stitching another designer's Japanese portrait and is ready to celebrate. Here's the blog entry describing her final touches to Nippon Textures.

http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/01/let-tea-ceremony-begin.html

The above is the companion piece to the Squiggee Three Women and a Peach which I just finished (and need to get on that album cover). It is really worth a visit to Anne's blog to read how she stitched this piece. It is similar in some ways to my stitching of Three Women and very different in other ways. Click on the photo to enlarge it and you'll see why I have been asking Anne to do stitch guides for her pieces for years. (Ok, the truth was I've begged and begged, especially for the fabulous Door canvases you can see on her website by finding the link on the left top part of her blog.)

Lovely collaboration, Anne and Gail!

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

English Gentleman with Plum Pudding

This charming Englishman with his pipe, his umbrella and of course his plum pudding is for sale on the Buy It Now portion of eBay for $45 plus shipping. The seller has a lot of the Dede Santas from various countries, so click on View Seller's Other Items to see other nationalities.

http://tinyurl.com/79b5eq

Robin, this one's for you!

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow