Finished and Fabulous!

Letha C. got "Sleepy Kitty" back from the finishers, I love how "meta" this design is!

Emily M. stitched "Prismatic Quartet" and self-finished it into this pre-made tote bag, it came out perfect! 

Tons of Stitched Models on Display!

I've loaned all of my stitched models to Fancy Stitches and they have them on display all over the shop.  And better still, their fab photographer, web page master (and teacher), Cynthia P.  came in and took pictures, then made a special web page to show them off to all the online customers!  Check it out here.

And here they all are in full size, thanks again to Cynthia! 

Bracelet Series:

Halloween Treats:

Flowers & More:

 Bags for all occasions:

 Tickled Pink ornaments:

 Halloween Treat Bags:

 Pillows:

 Even More Halloween:

And more Tickled Pink:

Christmas Tree Trio:

 Book Covers and an Ice Cream Treat:

Some Halloween goodies:

Thanks for looking, if you happen to be in the central Dallas area, be sure to stop by!

Gardening Tips

Today I am sharing some extra photos of the Spring Garden Floss Tag, the third project in the set after the Humbug and the Biscornu.  This project appears in the current May/June issue of Needlepoint Now:

In my last post, I shared with you my source for the best way to do Chain Stitch, which is the technique I use for assembling all of the Spring Garden series projects. Here is a photo of the tag in the finishing process with one of the sides joined together:

Here is a photo of the Humbug, illustrating how the Chain stitch border is used to join the edges with Whip stitch, sliding the needle cleanly under the pair of Chain stitches:

This is a really easy way to self-finish small items-- I hope you will give it a try!

Speaking of Needlepoint Now projects, here is a close up photo of Prismatic Quartet, which is available as a reprint now that the original magazine issues it appeared in have sold out.

It was my hope when I designed this piece that it would inspire stitchers to raid their stash and put their own spin on the original design.  I was extremely happy to see this photo in a recent edition of the Needlepoint Now newsletter-- Ruth Wallis stitched her Prismatic Quartet as a Duet, using mostly stash threads and adding her own borders to the outside edges.  I love the result, it came out fantastic, don't you agree?  

Great work Ruth, thanks so much for sharing!  If anyone else out there has any photos of my designs, finished or not, please do send them on to me, I love showing off your work!  

Finally, I'd like to show off my ad in the recent issue of Needlepoint Now, wonderfully put together for me by my distributor, Ruth Schmuff. It features designs from my 2013 collection, Cardinal Joy, Mod Merry and Floral Collage:

That's it for now, next time I'll be back with some peeks at what will be new for Summer 2013!  Thanks for looking and Happy Stitching!

Spring Garden Bonus Project and More!

I am happy to announce that the May/June issue of Needlepoint Now features a bonus companion piece to my Spring Garden Biscornu and Humbug-- a fun little floss tag to round out this little sewing set:

The above is a preview from the actual issue, I will post some more detailed photos later on.  For those of you working on these projects, I would like to share here once again the best tutorial on working chain stitch.  All of these projects employ a fair amount of chain stitch as it is used for the finishing process on all three designs.  Chain stitch was always a difficult one for me to do, until I came across the technique of working it in reverse.  Not only is it now super easy to do, it also made it into a very utilitarian technique as well.  Read more about it here on the fabulous Sublime Stitching blog.

And in other Needlepoint Now related news, reprints are available for my Prismatic Quartet design published last year.  Some of those issues have sold out, so the magazine is offering it as a reprint booklet.  It is available both direct from the magazine and from Bedecked and Beadazzled. 

Thanks for stopping by and as always, Happy Stitching!

Still More Kits!

Ruth just recently added my Halloween Collage to the list of canvases with stitch guides, and this one is by Julia Snyder herself, no less!  Look at all those great threads and beads, you know it's going to be good!

Here are the thread kits for my Fall Tree and Winter Tree, with stitch guides published in Needlepoint Now magazine.  Thanks so much to Melinda from Living the Good Life blog for her lovely photos!

The wonderful folks at Peacock Alley Needlepoint pulled these pretty threads for my Halloween Star:

The Pockettes at Pocket Full of Stitches were intrepid enough to put together thread kits for my Prismatic Quartet design, also published in Needlepoint Now.  These are the threads for just ONE of the four sections!

Threads of Virginia designed a stitch class using one of my Halloween Topiaries and now the instructions and kit are available to all, so give them a call if you are not local and they'll be happy to send this beauty your way!

Hope this has helped you to fill out that shopping list a little further!  Until next time, Happy Holidays and Happy Stitching! 

Starting the Week with a Finish!

This week is off to a good start with lots of things being wrapped up in the finishing department!  The only thing better than putting that last stitch into a project is getting said project back from the finishers. That's when you really get the satisfaction of a job well done, whether you are gifting the piece or displaying it in your own home. 

Judy, who was among the first to finish her Sammy Challenge over on Stitcherie, is now the first to get him back from the finisher.  What a great job, I love the summery fabric chosen for this banner, it makes it perfect for hanging out the whole season long!  Congrats to you Judy! 

Here is yet another fabulous finish of a CandyLand Christmas Tree Farm, in yet another great fabric color option!  Am I going to be the very last one to finish stitching mine?  And will I ever be able to choose between the aqua version, the orange/pink option and now this terrific white/gold option??  I suppose I have a lot to think about while I work on getting it stitched.  Great work from West Coast Finishing once again. 

I even did a little finishing of my own this week and no one is more surprised than me that I wrapped this one up pretty quickly!  Needlepoint Now returned my stitched model of Prismatic Quartet a couple weeks back and I immediately started procrastinating about getting it finished.  Since getting a sewing machine for Christmas last year, I now feel almost obligated to do some of my own finishing, so I set about making up this pillow, which I then hand-sewed the needlepoint to.  I expected to spend most of the weekend on this, but I was done with it by Friday, yippee!  

I also finished stitching Tahiti by Needle Delights Originals last week, so I popped it into this temporary frame for display while I decide on a permanent frame.  I like to keep a few "stock-size" frames handy just for this purpose, it keeps me from storing completed stitching away and out of sight, where it tends to languish.  This way I can enjoy it and hopefully it will speed along the process of getting it out to the actual framer!

In other news this week, the Black Eyed Susans Chapter of the ANG, located in Maryland, is getting ready to work on Prismatic Quartet.  Hope they will have as much fun with it as I did!  They will be meeting June 21 at The Meeting House, 5885 Robert Oliver Place in Columbia, MD at 7:15pm.  Contact them for more information at BlackEyedSusansChapter@needlepoint.org.  Hope you can join them!

Finally, I sent out a newsletter over the weekend regarding the new designs I will be releasing this month in time for the big Summer TNNA Needlework Market as well as upcoming classes.  If you would like to sign up for my newsletter please send me an email.  If you would like to see older edition newsletters, I have them archived on my Facebook page.

Wow, that's a lot of news for so early in the week!  Hope your week has gotten off to a good start as well-- until next time, Happy Stitching!  

Prismatic Quartet Part Four

It hardly seems possible that the final installment of Prismatic Quartet is here already! The May/June 2012 issue should most likely already be in your mailboxes as I write this.  I remember that years ago, before I ever even dreamt that I would have a project published in Needlepoint Now, that issues seemed to arrive so seldom that I often worried if my copy had gotten lost in the mail.  But ever since I have been fortunate enough to contribute to its contents I swear it seems as if it is suddenly a monthly magazine!  I feel like I only finished stitching this design the other day and here we are at the end already-- it's quite a bittersweet experience for me really.  If you are stitching along on this design, I hope you have enjoyed it, and if you have yet to start then I suppose you also feel as if this series has been published at the speed of light :)  

Here is a close up photo of part four.  Hopefully it will be helpful to you if you have any questions about the exact placement for the various beads and sequins:

Here are close ups of the previous sections published over the past three issues.  Part three of four was published in the March/April 2012 issue:

Part two of four from the Jan/Feb 2012 issue:

Lastly, part one of the series from the Nov/Dec 2011 issue:

And all together now, the complete Quartet!

I hope you have or will enjoy stitching this piece as much as I did.  It was wonderful to finally use some of the threads from my stash that I had been longing to stitch with, but had never found the right canvas for.  You may have plenty of threads like this in your stash as well, and if so I encourage you to try them on this design-- it is truly a "stash-buster" project.  However, if you are like me and you prefer to stitch a design as it is shown, there are shops out there who have taken the work out of hunting down the many, many threads for you and offer complete kits.  Bedecked and Beadazzled and Pocket Full of Stitches are two of them and they both offer mail order as well if you are not local.  

Finally, I would like to thank the wonderful Needlepoint Now crew for their fantastic magazine!  It has been invaluable to me over the years, both as a stitcher and a designer.  Elizabeth Bozievich, the editor and publisher is a dream to work with and I've had the added pleasure of working with Vicky DeAngelis too.  Vicky's insight into editing my diagrams and instructions for this project was incredibly helpful.  

Hope you have enjoyed this little retrospective.  If you have any questions at all regarding this project, please do send me an email!  Happy Stitching!   

Prismatic Quartet and Beach Blanket Bingo!

I cannot believe how fast time flies!! I just received my preview copy of Needlepoint Now in the mail, featuring part 3 of my canvaswork design, Prismatic Quartet. To me, it seems like it was just yesterday that I mailed the finished canvas off to the editor-in-chief, Elizabeth Bozievich. I cannot believe this project is almost over already-- it seems like it took longer to stitch than it did to publish!

Here are parts 1 and 2 of the design, already published in the Nov/Dec 2011 and Jan/Feb 2012 issues:
And here is part 3, coming in the March/April 2012 issue:

The completed design, thanks to the Needlepoint Now team for their great photography!
It has been great working with the talented people at Needlepoint Now. Elizabeth wears many hats, in addition to being the editor, she also designs the terrific layouts. I have always been completely delighted by how she has presented my designs in the magazine-- she framed my Floating Hearts design from May/June 2010 with candies and made my Winter Tree look like it was part of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree lot, how could I not love that?! For Prismatic Quartet, I have had the extra added pleasure of working with Vicky De Angelis, who edits the projects as well as doing the meticulous charting work. Being a fabulous stitcher herself, she is great at her job and fun to work with too! Thanks so much, Team Needlepoint Now, it is an honor to be included in your pages!

Now, on to the Beach Blanket Bingo portion of our program! Karen has been hard at work on her Challenge canvas and shared her progress with the group this morning:
Is Sammy's beach blanket fabulous or what? Karen has thrown down a gauntlet for the other stitchers for sure, I cannot wait to see what other great beach blankies our other stitchers will do! Sheena has mentioned doing a bamboo-style mat, using the Sea Grass thread. If you haven't read the rules for this Challenge, one of them is to use Thread Gatherer's Sea Grass somewhere in the design and I assume Sheena may weave her's out of that, thus fulfilling two Challenges in one step, a woven stitch being another one of the rules. Clever Karen has ticked off 3 Challenges in just one step: she used the Blueberry Watercolors, the strongly overdyed thread and a Byzantine stitch all together for the blanket. Well done, Karen! I can't wait for more, our stitchers are pretty intrepid. There has even been talk of using the Sea Grass to "weave" a picnic basket for Sammy, so stay tuned!