Apology

I owe some of the early risers among you an apology for yesterday. Mondays I backup Blog on Blogspot and when I was doing that yesterday morning, I accidentally backed up the wrong blog here. Yes, I actually have a video game blog which I maintain for my husband. All I have to do is click on the wrong line and the backups go to the wrong place. And at least one person was reading Blog when I pushed the button. Since I had 400+ blog postings added here where they didn't belong, it took me a while to remove them.

Maybe I should back up Monday nights after I'm fully awake? LOL

Not to fear, World of Warcraft hasn't hijacked Blog. I just pushed the wrong button!

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

Books in Bloom

Lots of book reviews are popping up online these days, perhaps inspired by Sue's blog posting "Books are Friends."
http://sudukc.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/books-are-friends/

Mary Corbet loves medieval illuminated art books.
http://www.needlenthread.com/2009/03/what-inspires-your-needlework.html

And she loves stumpwork books.
http://www.needlenthread.com/2009/03/embroidered-flora-fauna-book-review.html

AND 19th Century embroidery!
http://www.needlenthread.com/2009/03/book-review-19th-century-embroidery.html

Stephen has started a book of the week posting with a classic that belongs in every serious needlepointer's library.
http://rittenhouseneedlepoint.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-feature-book-of-week.html

There's plenty of good reading to keep us busy until Spring actually starts to act like spring.

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

The Easter Bunny Wears a Tie

This is seriously off-topic but with Easter coming, I thought you would enjoy seeing what to do with those old silk ties you always hated but wouldn't throw out because they were so expensive.
http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/03/silk-dyed-eggs.html

The above canvas is a Shelly Tribbey design, by the way.

http://www.needlenookoflajolla.com/canvas/holiday/easter/

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

Once Again, the Yarn Harlot Speaks Truth

The Yarn Harlot often says exactly what I'm feeling. Since she's a knitter, I occasionally find this odd. I don't knit, you know. I know how, but I don't much enjoy it. However, when you think about it, needlepoint and knitting are needlework, and we practitioners of these things have a lot in common, even if I can't wear my needlepoint on my feet--unless I do needlepoint slippers which I have decided I will avoid since I'd be too frightened to actually *wear* the things.

Come to think about it, how on earth do knitters talk themselves into wearing works of art like these?
http://mimoknits.typepad.com/knitting/2006/09/sock_season_soo.html

Back to what the Yarn Harlot was saying. Go read her blog and then come back. I'll wait. I need to do some more tent stitches on Holi's background anyway....
http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2009/04/04/the_opposite_of_alert.html

Back already? Gosh, I thought I'd get more done. You were fast! (Or I am a slow stitcher. LOL)

The Yarn Harlot describes our situation as needlepointers pretty well, doesn't she? We live in a place and time that doesn't value hand work. The only place we can go to find someone who really understands us is gatherings of other needlepointers, folks who know us, admire our work, understand the problems we've overcome and applaud us for it. But the yearly ANG Seminar isn't always close by, guild meetings are often at bad times for us, and even getting to a good shop isn't always easy. Thank God for the Internet.

If you belong to the ANG email list, if you have a favorite online shop that helps you out whenever you call or email, if you've taken a cyberclass or used the free charts and stitches available at various sites, well, you know the power of the Internet to fuel our creativity and our needlepoint. It's how we overcome the distance and loneliness and find folks like us.

It's how we all ended up here.

So the next time you visit your favorite blogs to enjoy the stitching of friends you have never met and maybe never will, the next time you place an email order for that canvas you have lusted for that is on sale at a shop a thousand miles from you, the next time a friend in another country sends you some local threads and you reciprocate, the next time you learn about new threads or designers or shops, think of how much the Internet has enriched your stitching life.

I'm grateful. I just hope that somewhere someone is capturing all this web NP for posterity. Or in 200 years folks will be piecing together the story of needlepoint in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries and they won't know who we were.

But our needlepoint will speak for us. So do the best you can. It's history you are stitching. Our history.

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

Charted and Sideways (April SOTM)

ANG has finally been able to post a charted version of their Stitch of the Month (SOTM) project on their website. If you want to stitch The Glittering Kimono along with Tony Minieri but you aren't comfortable printing out a line drawing, enlarging it, and tracing it onto 18 count needlepoint canvas, visit this link.
http://www.needlepoint.org/StitchOfTheMonth/2009/images/jan-tres.jpg

To see the 2009 Stitch of the Month project (a new stitch each month makes up this fabulous kimono pattern) head to ANG's website and pick the 2009 entries.
http://www.needlepoint.org/Stitch.php

The April stitch (Nobuko Variant) just went up and you see my rendition of it above, stitched in one strand of mauve-pink Impressions, color # 2054. If you are wondering why my stitch is turned sideways, I found it easier to stitch this way. Turned upright the way Tony diagrammed it, I kept missing the count. I finally turned the canvas 1/4 turn so that the left side was on top and stitched Nobuko Variant in vertical rows. Of course you have to turn your diagram also, and you see it turned to the side the same way in the photograph.

It's very pretty. I was a bit worried that Impressions would be too thick for congress cloth (I wanted to use ecru canvas but I didn't have any 18 count) but it looks good. Since this is a mystery project and we don't know what it looks like, I am just posting photos of the various stitched sections for now. Once more of the kimono is filled in, I'll show you more of what my version looks like.

Kudos to ANG for talking the lovely lady who charted this pattern into letting them use it on the website and for tracking down Tony Minieri (who was on the road teaching) for permission to chart his pattern for the counted thread crew!

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