A Needle Art Love Story, Chapter 9 Begins Today

If you are in the Fort Worth area, you need to stop by this amazing exhibit of needle art at one of Fort Worth's very best historic mansions.  Now in it's 9th year, I am proud to say I have produced a new heart design for each "chapter" in this Love Story!  These canvases are sold at the show as a fundraiser for the preservation of Historic Fort Worth.  Here is this year's canvas:

The canvas is sold with a stitch guide, and kits are available as well-- here is the stitched model:

Here's a look at past year's hearts, also on display at the show:

I also exhibited 6 of my own designs at the show, here they are on display inside the gorgeous historic mansion, Ball-Eddleman-McFarland house:

For more information, see www.historicfortworth.org

Coming Soon!

I have a couple of new "custom" special event canvases coming out soon!

The first is my annual collector canvas for Thistle Hill's "A Needlepoint Love Story", a yearly exhibit of needlework displayed in the historic mansions of Fort Worth.  The 2022 ornament pictured below features the McFarland house in Fort Worth, the site of this year's exhibit.  All proceeds from canvas sales go to benefit the preservation of these homes.

Below is an anniversary ornament for The Tinsmith's Wife, located in Comfort, Texas.  This shop is a true "destination" shop and if you haven't been yet, get it on your list!  I recently spent two days there and it wasn't nearly long enough!! You can pre-order this ornament from the shop before it arrives later this year.  

 

Another Chapter of A Needlepoint Love Story Comes to a Close!

This weekend marked the 6th chapter of A Needlepoint Love Story, an annual exhibit of needlework on display at Fort Worth's historic Thistle Hill mansion.  I have been fortunate enough to be involved for a few years now, painting each year's commemorative ornament and this year designing and teaching a class piece as well.  Here is a look at some of the fun:

This year's ornament was painted after the mansion's Breakfast Room, which doubles as the gift shop during the exhibit:

 


This is the finished class piece, a three-piece design called "Love Home Joy".  

One of my friends had her pedicure painted to match the class colors!  

Hope you can join us next year for Chapter 7! 

Some Great New Stitches!

People have been busy stitching bees this summer so far, here are some great stitches of my canvases, soon to be on their way to the finishers:

Paula B. stitched this fabulous rendition of Pirate Mermaid, doesn't it look great?

Andrea A. completed her CandyLand Christmas so quickly I could hardly believe my eyes!  Love the background stitches on this one!

Barb W. gets a ton of stitching done while she travels, she just completed one of the designs from my Stitch a Falling Star club:

I'm sneaking in a stitched and finished one too, this is one of my Thistle Hill ornaments stitched by Ann T.:

Souvenir Canvases

I love canvases that commemorate an event, memory or place.  This is a canvas I painted as a souvenir for of a group of friends who I go to a stitching retreat with at The Liberty Hotel in Cleburne, TX a few times a year. I stitched the one on the top and gave it to the hotel staff for their Christmas tree. My friend Linda stitched the one below and she made a very nice job of it too!

I also painted a souvenir canvas for our favorite needlework shop, also located in Cleburne, Fancy Stitches.  This one was stitched by shop teacher Cynthia:

I also have a series of canvases painted for the annual Needlepoint Love Story at Thistle Hill in Fort Worth.  These are the first 3 in that series:

And this is the 2017 one:

Thanks so much to Sally, Sualice, Suzy, Naomi and French Knot for their great work on the Thistle Hill ornament series!

Happy New Year, A Little Bit Late!

Better late than ever though, right?  My holiday season was exceptionally chaotic as it coincided with selling our house!  I'll be moving soon and am really looking forward to being settled again.  In the meantime, there is a LOT of EyeCandy things going on.  The 4th chapter of Thistle Hill's "A Needlepoint Love Story" is coming up on February 22nd to the 26th and once again I am very happy to have created brand new ornament to commemorate this year's chapter.  This design features an interior view of Thistle Hill, the grand staircase, complete with stockings!  In past exhibits, the house's many running feet of stair rails have been absolutely covered by the dozens and dozens of stockings sent in for display and I found that hugely inspirational for this year's ornament.  I hope you will get a chance to visit in person to see this grand home covered in exquisite needlepoint!

Click to visit the Needlepoint Love Story's official Facebook page! 

The 2017 Ornament:

Here are the ornaments from the past three year's exhibits, all of these are still available and can be ordered via Historic Fort Worth.

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Finishing Off the Week!

Lots and lots of great finishing to show off today, thought I'd clean up my photo files this Sunday morning and get next week started off clean! 

Winter Tree stitched by Diane G., finishing by Diana Sagamoe:

My friend Liz B. stitched this Thistle Hill 2015 ornament:

Nancy O's beautiful Easter Collage, finished at Chapparal in Houston:

Polly V., your Cowgirl Witch cam out great, love her and the finishing!

This one is a real oldie, but I couldn't resist-- Pastel Puzzle, finished at The Needle Works, Austin:

Cardinal Joy, courtesy of Fancy Stitches:

Sparkle Star, courtesy of Fancy Stitches:

Stars and Stripes, stitched by Jennifer G:

Mod Merry, stitched by Kathy H:

Floating Tiles, courtesy of NeedlePoint of La Jolla:

A Needlepoint Love Story Chapter Three Starts Today!

This year's needlepoint exhibit at Thistle Hill in Fort Worth officially kicks off today with a champagne reception at the mansion! I'm hoping that all of the needlepoint angels who bring this event to life will be there sipping bubbly and receiving many, many accolades for all the hard work they have done already and all they still have left to do.  They will be presiding over the show all weekend, and come Monday, they have to carefully re-pack all those treasures and get them safely back to their homes again.

Here's a look at the commemorative ornaments available for sale this year. All proceeds go to Historic Fort Worth to help with the preservation of these beautiful properties.  

This ornament commemorates last year's snowstorm that nearly cancelled the show:

 

This year's ornament shows the beautiful front gates:

The inaugural year's ornament showcases the front doors of the house:

Hope you can make it to this year's show, it's the biggest one yet with almost 800 pieces on display!  See you there!

Thistle Hill 2016 Exhibit

I received the Thistle Hill exhibit invitation card in the mail this week and was so happily surprised my ornaments were chosen as the artwork for this year.  These were beautifully stitched by Sally and Sualice, committee members and all-around angels, with stitch guides from the French Knot.  Great work ladies, I am proud to have the opportunity to work with you!

A Needlepoint Love Story, Chapter Three

It's coming up fast!  Thistle Hill in Historic Fort Worth Texas is hosting it's annual exhibit of needlepoint on February 24th to the 28th.  The show is called "A Needlepoint Love Story" and 2016 is "Chapter Three" of this continuing saga.  If you would like to exhibit your needlepoint in this non-juried show, there is still time if you act quickly.  Be sure to get your tickets to the exhibit from one of the outlets listed in the ad below.  

A new feature this year is the availability of souvenir needlepoint canvases, one for each chapter of the story so far.  The French Knot in Fort Worth is providing the stitch guides and some wonderful volunteers found time among their many other duties to stitch the models.  The canvases are available for order and a limited amount will be available during the exhibit itself.

The 2016 ornament marks a new beginning for the show, after the 2015 ice storm that de-railed the show last year.  Starting all over at the lovely wrought iron front gate of Thistle Hill seems a fitting symbol for Chapter 3.

The 2015 ornament commemorates that darn ice storm that de-railed the show that year.  It sure was pretty, the mansion coated in all that ice and frost, but unfortunately it kept the exhibit closed for 2 1/2 days of it's 4 day run.

The 2014 ornament, or "Chapter One" in our saga,  appropriately shows the beautiful front doors of Thistle Hill which you will pass through on your way inside to see all the stitched treasures within.

Be sure to make time to come see this wonderful unique needlepoint event.  There are well over 1000 pieces on display, so you might want to come more than once to take them all in.  All the profits of the ticket sales and canvas sales go to benefit Historic Fort Worth for the preservation of these sites, so your attendance will be making a difference as well!

What a Week!

I had the busiest week ever to start out the month of March, and I am only now getting sort-of caught up!  It always seems to work out for me that my otherwise empty calendar will have my few engagements all over-lapping or crammed into one very hectic week.  I started out the craziness with a weekend stitching retreat in Cleburne, Texas, where there was still this much snow on the ground, a whole week after the storms had passed:

Worried about getting snowed in, we brought tons of provisions, including this Texas-sized box of chocolates!

The hotel provided us with one of their largest conference rooms, which we had jam-packed.  This is just one corner!

I brought a ton of canvases to stitch, including Mod Ornaments:

A trip to Cleburne always includes at least one trip to Fancy Stitches!  This is a great stitch & finish of  one of my Texas flag canvases by Kathy.  It certainly does make me feel right at home to visit such a lovely shop that has so many of my canvases on the walls!

In May, Cynthia will be teaching another of my holiday collage canvases (she did the Halloween one last year.)

These are two versions of my Alpine Puzzle charted design that they have done, on lime canvas and on lavender. FYI, Fancy Stitches is THE place to call if you are looking for some of these very hard to find custom canvas colors.

Finally, I was in Cleburne also to pick up my models that were in the Thistle Hill needlepoint exhibit from the week before.  Unfortunately, the event was snowed-out for 3 of its 4 day run.  My friends and Thistle Hill volunteers Sally Ann and Sualice worked so hard toting these models around!  Here are a couple of photos that Saulice took of my stuff on display in the dining room:

And that was just the start of the week, I got home Sunday, went to the Houston rodeo on Monday, had a class on Tuesday, a stitch-in on Wednesday, my ANG meeting on Thursday, and then a 3-day Tony Minieri class Friday through Sunday! The rest of this month is pretty open though, and I need it to try to actually get some work done!  Happy Stitching!