Christmas Finishing

Two great finishes today, both fitting the season!  This set of Atomic Ornaments was stitched by Catherine Stroup.  Just fabulous!!

Stephanie Wong had her Candyland Christmas Trees finished into a gorgoeous hot pink leather handbag!

These two ladies have definitely got their holiday stitching taken care of, wish I could say the same!

Trunk Show at The Needlepointer

This month The Needlepointer in Everett, Washington is hosting our trunk show, complete with a 20% discount!

Be sure to stop by if you can, if not you can call them toll free or even order online! 

Texas Stitching

There has been a lot of Texas-themed stitching going on around here lately!  I recently completed my "Hey Y'all" ornament and taught it as a class here at 3 Stitches in Houston:

Also, another of my Texas ornament series, "Love Texas":

Here's a detail of the heart, I stitched it in Basketweave Beading and placed a JABC yellow rose button over the top of the beads:

This "Texas Home" ornament was very beautifully stitched by Beth over at Stitches in Time in Houston:

And the wonderful team over at Fancy Stitches in Cleburne, Texas stitched up my "Texas No Place Like Home" flag ornaments and had it framed:

Thanks so much for stopping by, hope you are all having a great holiday season so far!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Mod Ornaments Lesson One

The Mod Ornaments Mystery has started and I am embarrassed to admit that I am the class truant already!  I do not have mine started yet, so I'll have to show off my friend Connie's instead:

She's almost completed Lesson 1, so I really have to get going!

Here are the detail photos from lesson one that Sandy Arthur posted on her blog:

Don't you just love that bling?  You know I do!  Stay tuned for an updated post when I get mine stitched, hopefully over Thanksgiving weekend.  Happy Stitching! 

Cats and Birds Make For Some Great Finishing!

Cats and birds go together like oil and water, but together they do make for some pretty creative and fun finishing to show off this week!   Here are three of my Holiday Birds series canvases finished into a very one of a kind vertical garland:

Pretty nifty, right?  That is the kind of outside-the-box thinking that you get from the creative mind of Sue Parsons at West Coast Finishing, who came up with this clever way to combine two "landscape" shaped ornaments with one "portrait" shape.  Thanks so much to Pat Thompson who stitched this trio and shared her photo, great work Pat!

And another amazing finish of a relatively simple and small canvas belongs to Diane Gasior, who stitched my "Peek-a-Boo Kitty" and sent it to Mountain Shadow Studio for this incredible piece:

Look at these great details:

Hand painted details on the finial and a perfectly matched lamp work bead for the topper-- that is some top-notch work from the team at Mountain Shadow, love it.  It is a perfect complement to Diane's lovely stitching-- I am crazy about that background stitch!

And here is a photo of Diane's inspiration to stitch this design-- her daughter's cat, Ramona:

Look at that sweet face, isn't she a beauty? She reminds me so much of my own sweet Pooh Bear, who inspired me to paint the canvas design.  Cats are obviously very good muses!

As always, if you have any EyeCandy of your own to share, please do send me a photo so I can brag about you here! :)  Thanks for looking, see you back soon! 

Hey Y'all, Class This Saturday at 3 Stitches!

I'll be at my local needlework shop, 3 Stitches in Spring, Texas this Saturday from 9am to 11am with one of my Texas ornament canvases, "Hey Y'all", and y'all are welcome to sign up to either take the class or simply order the kit and stitch guide if time or location won't allow you to be there.  Just give the shop a call at 281 320 0133.  Hope to see y'all there!

Back From Austin!

Well, I've been back a couple of days actually, but am just now getting caught up!  My trip to Austin with my ANG group (the Lake Houston chapter) was fantastic.   We were hosted by Colleen at her shop, The Needle Works.  Not only was she on hand for help with our canvases, she even cooked for us too-- talk about a full-service shop!  I had a great time visiting with and meeting some of our more far-flung members and actually got a good bit of stitching done too.  I only started one or two new projects, worked on my ANG program project and most excitingly, finished my canvas for the Stitching Games, woo-hoo!  Here it is:

I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  I hope to post it again here soon, only finished.  I'm planning on my favorite, a boxed stand up with a huge bow-topper and crazy feet.  Also, I will write up a stitch guide for it and share it here with you all, hopefully by the end of the year.

And Now, Off to Austin!

Just back from the Needlepoint Nation Retreat in Nashville, and now I am off to the Lake Houston Chapter ANG Retreat in Austin!  We are being hosted by The Needle Works, so we will have a wonderful classroom to stitch in plus an amazing needlepoint shop to spoil us.  

I'll have some pictures to show when I get back, but in the meantime, please enjoy these photos of my Pirate Mermaid, stitched by Catherine Stroup.  Didn't she do a great job?  From the stitching all the way to picking the perfect frame, great work Catherine, thanks for sharing your photos!

Back From Nashville!

What a blast I had in Nashville!  The retreat, the shop, the company of my stitching pals, the food, the shopping, the stitching were all simply the BEST!  Lisa, Connie, Miriam and the whole shop crew at Nashville Needleworks sure know how to spoil a group of ladies.  

They hosted my trunk show as well as myself and it seemed to me that my canvases were flying out the door, woo-hoo!  And it didn't hurt that Connie Camp was on hand to pick threads and stitches either-- here is the kit she pulled for my "Trimming the Tree" canvas:

Don't those threads look delectable?  I was tempted to buy my own canvas, that's how gorgeous it looked!

My buddy Sherry was the lucky lady who took this one home, and she wasted no time on getting started stitching it-- here it is with some of the sequins added to the sky area: 

Here are a few shots from around the store, stitched models and EyeCandy canvas everywhere!

I hope if you get a chance to go to Nashville Needleworks, either on a visit or as a part of one of their classes or retreats, that you will not pass it up, it is an experience not to be missed!  I am already signed up for next year's Columbus Day weekend retreat and am counting the days until then.  In the meantime, they do still have my trunk show for a bit longer, so do stop in or call in if there is something you want, as there is a discount available.  

Needlepoint Nation Nashville Retreat & Trunk Show!

I'm off tomorrow to enjoy a weekend stitching retreat at Nashville Needleworks!  Columbus Day weekend marks the annual get-together held at the shop for the members of the Needlepoint Group on Facebook, a.k.a.s. "Needlepoint Nation".  Really looking forward to this one as there will be as many new people to meet as there will be older ones that I haven't seen since the Austin NN retreat.  My trunk show will be there along with me, here's a photo of all the models that will be on display in the shop:

Hope some of you may be able to stop by and say hello!  The trunk show should be there until the end of the month.

Down to the Wire!

As usual, I posted my stitching photos for the September clue for the Stitching Games on the evening of the last day.  This month was over before I had realized it had begun!  So for this clue, "granny" I did a little word association thing, as in "Granny has gone bats and started to collect a lot of cats", so  stitched in the words cats and bats on my canvas.  Here they are, although I haven't finished the letters on the bats panel yet. (Told you I was running behind this month!)

Judy's Owls

Judy G. has recently finished stitching all six of my Hoot Hoot! owls, using my stitch guides but her own stash threads, and they came out great, like all of Judy's stitching.  I'm so happy to show the whole set off to you here today.  Hopefully sometime soon I'll have more photos, when they come back from the finishers!

Holiday Owl

 Spring Fever Owl

Patriot Owl

Harvest Owl

Winter Snowy Owl

Spooky Owl

Just a Few More Days to Register for Mod Ornaments Mystery!

Here's a photo to tempt you!  Sandra Arthur has been fine tuning the thread kits for the Mod Ornaments class, here's a peek at some of the contenders!

Remember to send Sandy an email to confirm your registration by September 15th, and be sure to consider joining the Yahoo Discussion Group that she has set up for the class-- it's sure to be informative and fun.

There are several stores participating in the Mystery, and you can sign up that way too.  3 Kittens Needle Arts have set up a Stitch-a-Long style class, you can find sign up information here.  Serendipity Needle Works in Alabama also is participating, sign up with them here.

Hope you decide to play along with us, it's going to be so much fun! 

New Cuff Bracelet Design for Needlepoint Now-- Witches' Familiars

My newest design for Needlepoint Now is officially available!  This is the second in a series of cuff bracelet designs that I started with the Tropicana Cuff.  This is a Halloween theme that can easily be adapted to any theme you would like-- your favorite holiday or hobby or color, a perfect piece to use that special color thread or embellishment that you've been looking to showcase.  I hope you'll have fun experimenting with this design.  Be sure to send me a picture of what you come up with so I can showcase it here!

Only 12 More Days to Get Registered for Mod Ornaments Mystery Class!

Here is all the information, directly from Sandy's blog:

Just look at this!  My goodness there are all kinds of possibilities lurking on this piece of canvas!  And...you can bet there will be lots of bling.

For those of you not into the  hot pinks and lime greens, I will be offering an alternate color way for the traditional holiday colors of greens, reds, purples, blues, golds, etc.

So, just send me an email telling me you'd like to participate and we'll get you registered right away.  Scroll on down and read earlier posts about the class.  It is made up of 6 monthly lessons posted at $25 each.  There is a Yahoo discussion group if you would like to participate as a member.  Individual invoices will be emailed monthly. Lessons will be emailed to you individually.

Would love to have you join us!

Sandy

Click HERE to go directly to Sandy's blog to register!

Another Month, Another Clue

Another Stitching Games clue, that is! This month's clue was "apple" and it reminded me of an old song lyric that goes "You're the apple of my eye, you're the moon in my sky", so naturally then I stitched my moon and sky.  The moon is stitched with an ivory-color Snow, the sky is a random long stitch with a really great overdye and the witch herself is this wonderful sequin I found from my favorite sequin source: Cartwright's.  I'm so happy I finally had the chance to use one, it really worked well I think.  

Hope you all are having a great long weekend and getting lots of stitching time in! 

A Christmas Story, the End. Or Is It?

After painting six canvases, it did finally occur to me that the original request had only been for ornaments.  So unless you are decorating a Texas-sized tree, 10 inch tall stand ups are a bit big to be an ornament.  So finally I did paint what she actually asked for!

Kringle Belle Ornament

"Bearing Gifts"

4.5 x 6 on 18ct.

Kringle Belle Ornament

"Bearing Candy"

4.5 x 6 on 18ct.

Kringle Belle Ornament

"Bearing Ornaments"

4.5 x 6 on 18ct.

So that's the end of the tale, right?  No, not yet!  There has been a hint that there will be a need for more Belles in the future, plus I've had a brand new request for some Kringle Beaus!  Back to work for me! 

A Christmas Story, Part Two

So the saga continues!  After painting the larger stand-ups, I second guessed myself that perhaps I had not ultimately painted elves as much as I did Christmas scenes with elves in them.  To remedy that, I painted another set,  making the elves much bigger and greatly limiting the background details.  I was able to add a little more detail to their colorful outfits too!

Kringle Belle Mini

"Gathering Candy"

5 x 8 on 18ct.

Kringle Belle Mini

"Delivering Gifts"

5 x 8 on 18ct.

Kringle Belle Mini

"Tree Decorating"

5 x 8 on 18ct.

So was it "mission accomplished" with this second set?  Not yet, there's still more to the story!  See you again here soon I hope!

A Christmas Story

Ruth Schmuff's blog post this morning made me smile; she introduced my newest canvases framed as a fairy tale.  But did you know that it is a TRUE fairy tale?  It actually is! One of my biggest fans and cheerleaders did indeed wish for a series of little girl elves for her daughter, "the Princess".  She wanted ornaments, but alas, inspiration took hold of me and I painted three big stand-ups instead! 

Her only specifications were that they be girl elves and that she would like one dressed in pink and purple.  Here she is busy gathering the candy that grows wild in the Christmas countryside:

Kringle Belle

"Gathering the Candy"

6.5 x 9.5 on 18ct.

Another elf was to wear bright green and red, she is the one delving the pretty packages to Santa's sleigh:

Kringle Belle

"Delivering the Gifts"

6.5 x 9.5 on 18ct.

The elf destined to wear the oh-so-trendy blue and green outfit is of course stylish enough to be in charge of the decorating: 

Kringle Belle

"Decorating the Tree"

6.5 x 9.5 on 18ct.

Hope you'll check back here soon to hear the rest of the tale, it doesn't end here!