A Giveaway

Since we were just talking about the beaded pattern couching, I have been meaning to give away my extra copy of the March/April Needlepoint Now that I received when we switched to a post office box this year.  My copy took so long to be forwarded from the street address I thought it was lost, and NP Now sent me a replacement.  (Thanks, Elizabeth!)  Naturally three weeks after the replacement issue arrived the original showed up with stickers all over it as it was shunted here and there.

This issue has beaded pattern couching diagrammed in the Leigh Deisgns flower piece on the back side of the magazine stitched by Brenda Hart.  You can read all about the issue here and even see Brenda's piece by clicking on the link to the Back Cover.
http://www.needlepointnow.com/back_issues/2010/2010_03/2010_03.html

I'm going to give my extra copy away to a random person who comments on this blog article.  So post a comment and I'll pick a number based on the first, second, third, etc. person who comments.  If Blog won't let you comment, don't worry, you can still enter the drawing.  Just email me at chilly hollowat hotmail dot com and I'll include you.

You don't need to give me your mailing address or anything, just write a comment and post it or email it to me.  I'll announce the winner Sunday to give everyone a chance to read this blog posting. The winner can then let me know where to mail the copy.

Good luck!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

The Final Product: The Mermaid Purse

The little Melissa Shirley mermaid's bullion curls are all finished, and I've added a length of holographic Kreinik to make a hair clasp, so it is time to attach the canvas to the canvas purse I bought.  Because the purse is such thick canvas and the needlepoint piece is small, I decided to attach it to the pocket of the purse with glue.  So I laid the canvas upside down on a piece of waxed paper and using my Aileen's Tacky Glue, I ran a bead of glue all around the outside edge of my stitching.  With a toothpick, I smoothed out blobs so that every part of the outside margin of the stitching had glue on it in a smooth layer.  Then it dried all day.  That evening I cut out the canvas at the glued edge, one thread from the stitching, using my regular scissors (not my embroidery scissors--NP canvas is too tough on them).

Then I put glue on the pocket and along the back side of the needlepoint at the edge.  Carefully aligning the canvas to the pocket, I put the needlepoint on and pressed down hard.  Then I put a skinny book inside the pocket and put more books on top of the pocket so the glued needlepoint was pressed down hard to dry.

Once the purse dried overnight, I removed the books and checked how everything looked.  As I'd suspected the one thread I cut outside of that wasn't stitched showed on the top and bottom of the needlepoint, but not on the sides.  On the sides the pocket trim hide the raw edge.   This is easy to fix, however.  I just strung enough of my lemon-lime green beads to cover the top on waxed thread, then glued the line of beads along the top and a second string along the bottom of the canvas, hiding the raw edge.  Trim is wonderful!

Here's the final result, which is all wrapped and boxed up ready to mail to the Birthday Girl.  Note the glass heart attached to the zipper pull in the two last photos.  That was an added touch, something I picked up on sale at the local crafts emporium to fancy up the purse even more.  Many thanks to Melissa Shirley for allowing me to post photos of her design here as I stitched like the wind to finish it in time for the Big Day!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Finishing Touches

BEFORE

I believe it is the little finishing touches that lift a project from "good" to "very good" or maybe even "fantastic."  Above is a Before photo that shows the mermaid before I added a few touches to the design.  At this point I had added a few straight horizontal stitches to her bra to connect the two breastplates.  A bathing suit top just doesn't look right to me without them. I used the same red Elegance silk perle that makes up the straps to the top.  Adding those few stitches completed the look for me.  Without them that area bothered me and you know how it is--if something on your stitching bothers you now, you'll never be able to look at the piece without it still bothering you later.  Much better to deal with the issue (whether it involves ripping out or not) now while you can and avoid the irritation later!

The second photo shows the backstitching around the mermaid's hands and along her chin (using one ply of the rose Splendor that makes up her cheeks) to define these areas.  Added these few stitches really added a lot to this design.  Without them, the chin and neck blended together and the fish and hands also were hard to tell apart.  See what a difference a few threads make?

By the way, in the above photos I'm starting to add her hair, all in bullions using a great crewel-sized wool called EPiC.  I don't know where I found this wool locally (I think Needlewoman East but I am not sure), but it is great stuff.  My color is the overdyed "multitone" Apricot.  It is light apricot to almost orange in color and makes great bullions.  My own opinion is that a tightly twisted thread makes the best bullions although I have done them in one ply of silk.
http://www.allpointsyarn.com/APYYarnBiz/epic_yarns/epic_wool_yarns.htm

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Beaded Pattern Couching

I should subtitle this blog entry something along the lines of "Robin Made Me Do It," except that implies I did something wrong, egged on by a partner in crime. But it is Robin's fault that I used beaded pattern couching on the mermaid's tail.   She emailed me suggesting it might be a great way to bead the tail on the mermaid just when I was pondering how to put beads there.

You see, Robin is doing a class for the Columbus TNNA trade show.  (Robin teaches and does stitch guides at Amy Bunger's shop, as well as producing Amy's DVD series.)  TNNA puts on classes for the shop owners who come to the show so that they have new and fun techniques to show their customers when they get back home.

Robin is teaching a Needle Deeva heart with fall flowers and a pumpkin canvas with beaded pattern couching on it.  Robin sent me this photo of the test she did for her heart.  Wouldn't it make great scales on a mermaid's tail?!

Here are the list of the TNNA classes for shop owners to browse.  You can see Robin's Needle Deeva heart on page 19.  Robin says there are maybe seven spots open in her class, by the way, just in case you are in the business and going to this trade show.
http://www.tnna.org/portals/1/tnna.website.files/Summer_10_show/10%20NAM%20BF%20EDUCATION.pdf

The photo of Robin's piece isn't great, but you can see a better photo in Amy Bunger's June newsletter, just out yesterday.  Click on the June newsletter link and the PDF file will open for you.
http://www.amybunger.com/current_enewsletters.html

Robin told me to check out the March/April 2010 edition of Needlepoint Now where beaded pattern couching is used by Brenda Hart for a large purple flower.  Unfortunately, the photos in the magazine don't tell you how lovely this must be in person.  Here's the back cover that shows Brenda Hart's project.
http://www.needlepointnow.com/back_issues/2010/2010_03/2010_03_back_cover.html

For those who don't subscribe, beaded pattern couching is easy.  First, you lay down long stitches with your base thread, then couch them down with a pair of beads.  Robin had suggested I try Flair and since I had some dark green Flair in my stash,  I was ready to try the technique.  The photo of the mermaid shows my pattern couching underway.  I first wondered how I was going to lay down straight lines on the horizontal for a curvy tail, but then the light bulb went on--I could do vertical rows!  And so I did.

Step two is to couch down the base thread (Flair in my case) with two beads.  I had some Toho size 11 lemon-lime colored beads in my stash and also some lovely gold Sundance beads, so I used those.  In most cases I used two lemon-lime beads but occasionally I used one gold and one lemon-lime bead for the pairs.  The mermaid's tail is covered in dark green and gold spots.  The dark green Flair shows between the beads as you skip a row in the couching, so that took care of the dark green spots.  All I had to do is occasionally toss in a gold bead and it looked a great deal like Melissa Shirley's painted canvas.

When it came to the fan tail, I had to use either a ray of stitches or curved stem stitches with my Flair, but once I laid down a stitch or two, it was easy to couch them with my beads.  Occasionally I just used one bead to fit the space of the tail.  I think for a first attempt it looks pretty good.  This is definitely easier if you have a regular square or rectangle to fill, but you can angle your beads a bit by sinking your sharp beading needle in places other than canvas holes to make curves if necessary.  This photo shows how it turned out.

As you can see, I also finished tent stitching the fish.  It has a stem stitch smile (in red Elegance I used for her bra straps) and a few peach colored beads here and there to add sparkle.

By the way, everyone loved Cowboy Day so much yesterday, that I used a design of someone you might run into in a Western saloon for today's Canvas of the Day (one of the Leigh Floozie series).  You can see the rest of the series at the Needle Works online newsletter on their website.  Just click on the link and enjoy.   If you love cowboy boot canvases, you should explore the Webstore which has plenty of them, the shop being in Austin, Texas and all.
http://www.theneedleworks.com/

As Pat said yesterday, YeeHAW!

[Jane rides off into the sunset, needlepoint clutched in one hand and reins in the other....]

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Cowboy Day

I unilaterally declare Tuesday Cowboy Day!  The canvas of the day is a cute boot ornament from Quail Run Designs that is at auction on eBay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Quail-Run-Quail-mini-stocking-needlepoint-hp-18-ct-/190389924671?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c541fb33f#ht_1540wt_927

And the French Knot has posted photos of their Melissa Shirley cowboy boot monthly club all stitched up on their website.  The second link has details about the series.
http://www.thefrenchknot.com/models/texas_sw.html

http://www.thefrenchknot.com/npnowad.html

So swagger around today, imagining how great you would look in a pair of these needlepoint boots, partner!

(The Raymond Crawford canvas of the cowboy is from the same page of Southwestern designs that shows off the little boots.)

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow