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ThreadworX, famous for their overdyed threads, is starting to produce a bi-monthly newsletter. It's just out this week, and is something you really really REALLY want to sign up for.  The first newsletter is full of thread news, including photographs of their new colors, where to find stitching books for your Kindle or iPhone, an interesting idea of how to organize your threads, a review of a cheap stitch charting program, and three small projects, one of which is the first of their Birds of the Month.  An especially nice touch is that the Cardinal Bird of the Month project is both charted and a line drawing to transfer, so you can work from your preferred method.  You can sign up for the newsletter at their website by clicking on the link in the upper right hand corner.
http://threadworx.com/

The newsletter is really good, beautifully laid out and colorful, with lots of stitching news.  But it isn't all you get for signing up.  ThreadworX is sending subscribers a bonus stitch guide.  The first guide is for a Raymond Crawford painted canvas of Snow, which is a design incorporating the letters S N O W and snowmen heads.  The stitch guide tells you how to stitch this project with ThreadworX fibers, diagrams stitches for you and is a great resource for snow and snowflake stitching ideas.  You'll want to collect all these "stitch guides" and use them for brainstorming.

Disclaimer:  After I signed up and then accidentally told ThreadworX I didn't want to receive the newsletter, Beth from their offices contacted me to make sure.  We got to talking and I ended up going over the newsletter and stitch guide for her to make sure everything made sense from a stitcher's viewpoint.  She's sending me two skeins of their overdyed Kreinik metallic for one of my upcoming projects as a thank you.  I would have mentioned their newsletter regardless, as it is a fabulous resource, but you guys get full disclosure here as Blog becomes more well known and I occasionally am given products to use as I stitch for it.

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

Hints (Painted Canvas Project)

This is a hint about what canvas I plan to stitch next.

Actually, I have four small projects I plan to work over the next few months, alternating them with a counted thread piece.  This is just the first of the four.

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

Kimberly Laying Tool Case Tips

After I finish each project, I like to look back and think about what I learned from it.

The Kimberly Design laying tool case was a counted thread piece, and I'm not as practiced working charted items as I am with painted canvases.  Remember how I didn't stitch all the little straight metallic lines in the original arched border because I didn't notice they were anywhere except in the corners until I had started on the designs in the middle of the front and back?  That is a reminder to me to read and re-read all instructions over and over again when doing counted thread.  You might pick up all the subtleties of stitching a counted thread piece right away, but I don't.

The arched border was the hardest part of the design for me as it had to be counted exactly.  I forgot and counted holes when I started this piece and had to rip out and restitch the original outline of the design.  It is important to count threads when you are laying out a piece because if you count holes, you will short yourself by one.  Don't ask me how this happens, but I have noticed over and over again that it does.  So I'll have to remember to count threads for my next counted thread piece.  Which I will start soon....

The final hint I need to remember when I am stitching is about complicated stitches like the ones that make up the arched border on this piece.  Let me direct you to this diagram of a Jessica.
http://www.needlepoint.org/StitchOfTheMonth/2008/feb.php

I've discovered when stitching complicated stitches like this that often the previous stitch covers where the next stitch should start.  So I often come up at 1, go down at 2, and then don't pull my thread all the way snug against the canvas until I come up at 3.  That way I am not covering up 3's hole.

Does anyone else have great tips for counted thread stitching?  I'd love to hear them in the Comments!

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

The Kimberly Tool Case Is Finished

The Kimberly tool case is done!

I sewed my lining first, making a finished edge first, then folding it up and stitching the central vertical line, then all the pocket lines and finally the edges.  The sewing was easier, even through two layers of Ultrasuede, than I expected but I did take the precaution of clamping my piece together with banker's clips instead of pinning as I was afraid I'd make pin holes that would not come out. Anyone with more experience sewing on Ultrasuede than me may have suggestions in the Comments.

Then I carefully hand stitched the lining to the case.  That took hours because the sewing thread would catch on the bead edging so I had to work slower than usual--and I am not the world's fastest hand sewer at the best of times.

It looks great, though.  Here is the inside.  You'll notice I put all sorts of tools inside, not just scissors and laying tools.  I think this will be a traveling tool case and we need to take many stitching tools with us when we go places.

By the way, I asked Kimberly if the bead set is still available for this counted thread piece.  She says no, but now most folks can buy 14/0, 11/0 and triangular beads and choose their own colors.

Thank you, Kimberly, for permission to blog stitch this piece and post photographs!

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

Bead Shopping Results

The photo shows the results of my bead shopping yesterday.  I'm sorry it is a crappy scan but all the beads are lifting the NP canvas off the scanner bed and making it impossible to get a clear photograph.  The next photos I post will be real photographs.  They won't be as detailed but at least they'll be better quality!

Anyone who has been paying close attention to earlier pictures will have noticed that I moved the loop from the left side of the case to the right side.  I noticed yesterday when studying the Etsy photos of Kimberly's own design of a later case she sold there that she'd switched the loop to the right hand side instead of having it on the left as the instructions say.  Since she has stitched her laying tool case several times, I decided she must have concluded that having the loop moved made it easier to open and close the case so I cut off the original loop and moved it to the right.  Then I added my new beads.  The loop bead is a glass cylinder filled with cinnamon colored sparkles and the closure flat round bead is a polished agate. They are both very pretty and in colors that go well with my thread palette.  The other beads in the loop and closure are the same ones I used for my inner bead border.

I've already cut my piece of Ultrasuede for the lining.  Today I hope to get it stitched into pockets for the tools.  The Ultrasuede is almost 4 inches longer than the case is tall. That length is folded up and stitched with vertical lines to make the pockets.

Before I forget, there is a great new place to buy small pieces of Ultrasuede.  Orna Willis offers packs of 5 assorted but related colors for only $3 plus shipping.  This are small swatches of around 4x3 inches, but that's enough to finish small ornaments.
http://www.ornadesign.com/shop/product.php?productid=114&cat=1&page=1

I have already trimmed my needlepoint canvas to 10 threads out from the edge, clipped the corners and pressed the raw edges under.  Once the lining is finished, I will hand sew the lining to the NP and the case will be finished.

Everyone please cross their fingers that my sewing machine behaves!

Jane, signing off from CH where Evil Sewing Machine lives

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