Labors of Love

Ever since I learned to read, I've had my nose in a book. I was just thinking last night how many canvases remind me of a favorite book. So this morning I did a little looking and I found the designer Labors of Love (distributed by JB Designs which is under Julia's Needleworks; I know it is confusing but telling your shop all these names helps you to order what you want).

http://www.juliasneedleworks.com/gallery2/gallery2embedded.php?g2_itemId=11&g2_page=1

Page one has perfume bottles and paper dolls and fairy canvases--three of my favorite things! And there's the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, a book I read my baby brother when he was two.

Page two has Sheherazde from the Arabian Nights, one of my favorite books! Cleopatria keeps her company and there are matching frames for finishing. All those hours I read Egyptian history....

Page three has the 1930s style couple At the Ball (photo above) and At the Opera (think Lord Peter Whimsey and his posh friends), plus more characters from Alice in Wonderland. Wait a minute! Isn't that the same guy escorting two different women?!

Page four treats us to all the the Wizard of Oz characters! There's a darling Victorian angel, too.

Page five has the cutest Halloween canvases I've ever seen. The little devil-and cat-costumed kids and Dracula are hilarious and charming at the same time. The not-so-scary werewolf (I think it actually is a cat in a sweater pretending ferocity) and the cross-eyed Frankenstein crack me up.

Page six ends the show with the last of the Halloween characters, this time a little Victorian girl with her pumpkin. Good thing--Frankenstein is one of the most horrible books I've ever read.

What a show! Thanks, Labors of Love.

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

It's Fall, Isn't It?

It certainly is football season in the new Patriots football stadium canvas above by Julie Paukert which she designed for Wellesley Needlepoint. This isn't the first Boston-related sports canvas she has done for them. Check out Fenway Park here!

http://www.wellesleyneedlepoint.com/ExclusiveDesigns2.shtml

Then roam around the Wellesley NP website. Pay particular attention to other pages in their Exclusive Designs for their Boston Xmas train, the tree panel with Boston themes, etc. No other shop does such a nice job with exclusive regional designs unless it is some of the Arizona ones like The West, the Busy Needle, and Quail Run.

http://www.thewestinc.com/canvases.html

http://www.busyneedle.com/Themes/Southwest/index.htm

http://www.quailrun-inc.com/southwest.html

Hope everyone enjoys a virtual trip via needlepoint to The East Coast and The Old West! And go Pats!

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

Wednesday To Do List

I have finished the lighter blue robe stitches below the wizard's waist and now I'm doing the darker blue ones on his sleeves, chest and hood. I hope to finish all that this week; it takes a while as there is a lot of compensation. That's why I always start at the largest area when doing fancy stitches. By the time I get to the place where there is lots of compensation to do, I've mastered the stitch. Therefore, I did the large hem first, then moved on to work the smaller sleeves and chest and hood parts.

Once the upper blue robe areas are finished I'll go back and stitch the entire blue robe with metallic Accentuate. I might even add some lovely little sequins on his blue robe to help it be as flashy as the purple under-robe is.

Next on my To Do list is to work on the stone background. There's a ton of that to do still, and I probably am going to make the horizontal bar the firebird sits on longer. It looks ok in person but in photographs it looks too short.

The last thing on my To Do List is to check out Amy Bunger's website. Her September newsletter is up and when I headed over to see it, I realized that Robin K. has been *very* busy adding photos to many categories.

http://www.amybunger.com/current_enewsletters.html

Start at the link above to read the newsletter, but don't miss "What's New" or "Canvases" (love the Oriental stuff, Robin) and don't skip the Marj Hunter Designs section in "Canvases" because the beards are a great inspiration for what I might do with the wizard's hair and beard).

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

French Knot Newsletter

The French Knot's fall newsletter is up on their website.

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

Don't miss the 2009 Santas Diana Bosworth is stitching for one of their clubs! The photo above is May's. Isn't he sort of a wizard Santa? Very cute, but then she is really talented.

If you want to see great photos of stitched and finished Petei Bosworth Santas from the 2007 club, visit Jane's Stitching Up a Storm in River City blog. Once you stop goggling open-mouthed at her new pillow, look for the Petei Santas link in the right hand column and click there.

http://janew1102.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/08/will-you-look-at-this.html

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

More Wizard Clothes

I've been stitching the blue over robe on the Joan Thomasson Holiday Spirit Santa. The stitch is a Mosaic variation from Brenda Hart's Favorite Stitches (bottom of page 4 if you own this book) that I'm stitching in one ply of a medium blue Splendor (S860) for the bottom from of the robe and one ply of a slightly darker blue in Soie Crystale silk (7053) for the sleeves and the waist above the gold belt. Eventually I will do both sleeves in the darker blue and the bottom of the robe in the slightly lighter shade. I've not decided about the front of the wizard's chest yet but I probably will use the darker blue. We'll see.

Everyone stay safe this holiday, particularly all of you in Louisiana and Mississippi and southern Alabama, not to mention Texas.

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