Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Finishing From the Shop Owner's Perspective

The latest Pointing It Out Podcast talks about finishing from a shop owner's perspective.  It's fascinating to learn all the steps finishing goes through between the time a finished piece arrives at a shop until it returns to the stitcher made into something fabulous.  

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright April 24, 2024 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Berlin Embroidery Teaches Needle Cases and French Link Book Binding Stitch

If you've always wanted to create your own felt needle book, Tanja Berlin of Berlin Embroidery now offers a PDF file tutorial on French Link book binding stitch to make it easy to sew your needle book pages together in a decorative stitch.  

Tanja sells little needle case kits with full instructions and includes the French Link book binding tutorial for free if you buy one of them.  Currently there are two needle cases available, both using needlepoint canvas for the front and back.  You can buy the designs, threads, instructions and canvas from Tanja but will have to source two thick pieces of felt and ribbon for assembly yourself.  You will also need Craft Tacky Glue.  

If you have a needle case design in mind already, you can just order the instructions for the French Link book binding stitch to assemble your needle case for $7.88 USD. (Tanja is in Canada.)

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright April 24, 2024 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Monday, June 10, 2024

Five Vases Three Ways

Years ago Melita took a class from the designer SharonG herself around Sharon Garmize's "Five Vases with Curly Bamboo" which you can see unstitched here.

Melita used SharonG's guide for this beauty.  Sharon's a master of light coverage stitches as you can see with Vase One, the green one on the left with a feather design.

Some of Melita's chapter buddies are also stitching this.  Some are using Sharon's guide, some guides by Amy Bunger or Tony Minieri.  In this blog article Melita worked the ruby glass vase which has lots of beads.

For the teal blue vase with the dragonfly, Melita stuck to Sharon's light coverage although the guides by Amy and Tony have more solid stitching (and Tony has full coverage on all the vases apparently).

The yellow floral vase was stitched next, including the bamboo stalks in the vase.

Melita can't find the blog posting on the final vase, the cinnamon one, but this article talks about it briefly and also talks about the different ways the stitch guide writers approached this design.

Three versions of this design were  submitted to ANG's Needle Pointers magazine so if you subscribe you may see more of this lovely design in the January-February 2021 issue.
https://fliphtml5.com/bookcase/fmohu

By the way, this article also appeared in the CH Stitch Guides blog since it is about stitch guides and different approaches to stitching the same design.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright April 23, 2024 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Sunday, June 9, 2024

NJNA News for June

It's June, which means the New Jersey Needle Artists chapter of ANG has released their newsletter.

As always, there is plenty of ANG news, they show off a new Halloween club, they celebrate National Bubbly Day, tell you where to get wired silk purl and Tulip bullion needles, and explain the Thread Calculator.  It's a fun read.  Remember, use the side arrows when there is a picture as usually there are many more you can't see.  

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright June 2, 2024 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.

Saturday, June 8, 2024

Ridgewood Stitches Flowers (and Leaves) for New Stitch Monday

Stephanie of Ridgewood Needlepoint has posted articles in her New Stitch Monday column about stitching flower petals, complete with stitch diagrams and tips on how she used beads in the center of her sunflower.



Stephanie has switched to a design with flowers and leaves, so she also has leaf stitches for us.





Stephanie has listed quite a few simple leaf stitch diagrams in this posting.

It's back to the center of a sunflower this time.

And now the leaves next to the sunflower.

More leaves on this Laura Love design.

This time Stephanie is doing the maple leaf.  As a special touch, she added Accentuate (a very thin metallic) to the overdyed silk from Thread Gatherers and says it looks great.

This week Stephanie tackles smaller leaves, using Thread Gatherer's Silk N Colors (which I agree is a terrific thread).  If you want to experiment with Silk N Colors, visit the second link below.


The ferns are especially lovely but she does some nice small brown leaves, too.

Next is the sunflower and its leaves.  The petals are in ribbon stitches.  Search for Japanese ribbon stitch to see how to do the outer row.  The inner row is just satin stitches in ribbon.  Stephanie gives two options for the little leaves around the sunflower.

The final floral motif on this design are small yellow flowers, which get three different stitches and beads!

The last bit of this canvas is the background and the lettering.

Here is the canvas finished and framed.

Poppy Monk Needlepoint recommends a stitch they call Diamond Leaves for leaves and tree trunks.  Since we are talking leaves and flower petals, I thought I'd put that here as well.

Stephanie is working on a traditional Tobacco Leaf design for her next project.  Her yellow-green leaf is done in all Nobuko Stitch, which is very popular among needlepointers for large areas.

The navy leaf is a familiar stitch with some great tips for stitching it.

More leaves are done on the Tobacco Leaf design.

Adrienne is working on an Alice Peterson still life of tulips in a vase.  

This step works the tablecloth, using Nobuko with Gloriana silk (which is a lovely lovely silk, by the way).

The tulips look great in interlocking Gobelin.

Adrienne is now working stems and leaves for the tulips.

I'm not sure what lines are being stitched--maybe the rows on the vase?

The Alice Peterson tulips still life is done!

The next floral (stitched by Stephanie) is Raymond Crawford's "Pumpkin Floral."  Here you see it stitched and framed.

Stephanie found the perfect background stitch in The Pointer Sisters' We Have Your Back Ground Stitches.

Then she tackled the pumpkin.

Finally, the acorns were done in various stitches, then an oak leaf finished the piece.

The maple leaf stitch is a favorite of Stephanie's.



Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright April 23, 2024 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.