A Good Week For Finishes!

Some really great finishing photos today, it's been a prolific week for EyeCandy!

This one is courtesy of Jermies Needlepoint, and it is my favorite, because it is so different!!  This is my Vintage Skull Halloween Pail, but stitched in orange, who would have thought? I love it, I may have to stitch it again like this one!  

Here's the original-- so different!  The orange color totally works on this though! 

Rachel G. just got my Hoot Owl Trio back from New Creation Picture Framing and it is amazing! 

Sherrin E.'s Caribbean Waves ornament is back from TJ's Finishing, love it!

 Love this finish, also by TJ's, of my Stars N' Stripes canvas:

Not the only one of my stars to be finished by TJ's lately, here's Susan B.'s Halloween Star:

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!

Two Gorgeous Finishes by TJ Designs Needlepoint Finishing

Just wanted to share these two lovely finishes by TJ Designs Needlepoint Finishing.  Her customer Annice Hill stitched my Winter Tree canvas and TJ's made it into a fabulously embellished ornament:

This is my Candy Cornucopia canvas finished into a very glamorous bag.  I finished my original model of this much the same way, but with feathers rather than fur.  I have to say I really like the fur version, and it probably doesn't shed nearly as much as my feathered version either! 

Happy Wednesday, thanks for stopping by!

Halloween, Already??

No, Halloween is definitely a couple months away still, but of course you have noticed that many stores have started to put out the Halloween stuff already.  I'm always happy to see it though, even if it is only August.   I have some nice Halloween finishes to show you, both new and old.

This is Diane's great finish of my Fall Tree.  I love the pink trim and the pom-pom bow topper! 

Courtesy of Needlepoint.com in Raleigh, NC is this oldie but a goodie, my Halloween Sampler finished as a cute pillow:

Elizabeth just recently finished two more of my Vintage Halloween Pails, they look great and she's gotten them back just in time for Trick or Treating! 

Linda at Split the Needles blog did an amazing job on my Monster Mash cone and her finisher really went to town with the embellishments-- love it!!

 

Suzy has done a fabulous job stitching her Monster Mash cone too, but will it come back from the finisher in time for Halloween?  Maybe, but in the meantime, we can get a really good look at her very creative stitches:

See you next time with even more Halloween treats!

Join the Club!

Hi all!  I am back from a little summer hiatus after my birthday last week.  Since I have been stitching on some of my own older club series projects (as I didn't stitch the original models I'm stitching a few for myself to keep) I thought I would do a little EyeCandy club series retrospective today.

My very first club series was "Tickled Pink".  Ruth Schmuff did the stitch guides for these and they made their debut in her shop, Bedecked and Beadazzled.  These ornaments are very sentimental for me, as they gave me my start as a needlepoint designer.

I just recently finished stitching this one, it will be off to the finisher soon:

Only three more to go and I'll have the whole set of seventeen completed!

My next series was also a set of ornaments, this time with a retro theme, called Atomic Christmas.  Ruth  did the stitch guides for this set too.

I could not have been more excited when Cynthia Thomas contacted me regarding stitch guides she had done for three of my Vintage Halloween Pails.  After some consultation, we added three new designs to the original set of three and voila, my first Halloween club was created!  It made it's debut at the Chaparral in my current home town of Houston.

Cynthia did such a great job on this club, with both the stitch guides and the concept for the finishing. I'm just about done stitching the cat, then I'll have only two left to stitch.

For the next club, I changed direction completely from ornaments to a set of owl stand ups, complete with cute little wings and embellished bases. (Actually, the cute finishing was a result of Ruth and West Coast Finishing putting their heads together!) This series, called "Hoot! Hoot!" had a seasonal theme and I did the stitch guides and stitching.  

My current club is Crazy Patch Boo-nanza and it is shipping right now to needlework stores nation-wide.  This one is also stitch guided by me.

You can still sign up for Crazy Patch at your local needlepoint shop.  All of my previous clubs are currently available as individual canvases with stitch guides, so you can pick and choose or get the whole set if you want!

One of the clubs that excited me most was one that Fancy Stitches in Cleburne Texas did with my set of Seasonal Tree canvases.  Their in-house stitch guide guru, Martha Johnson, stitched all four canvases and somehow managed to make the colors even more vivid than I did!! The results were fantabulous I think-- here is the Winter Tree:

So pretty!  I love how she added even more colors with the addition of the overdyed thread and ribbon.

So there you have it, hope you have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane with me.  My next club is currently "under construction" and I can't wait to share it here with you!

Catching Up In Summer (School)!

I am doing some "catch-up" stitching this summer, much as you might have to catch up on school work in summer school.  Not to sound like it's drudgery though, not at all!  Since I'm not working on stitching new models right now, I have a little time to go back and work on stitching on stuff that I get to keep for myself!  

I will probably finish stitching this Vintage Candy Pail this week and then I'll have four out of the set of six pails completed, yay!  Can't wait for the first Halloween when I'll have the whole set!

I finished the Palm Tree Heart last week, it will be number thirteen out of the seventeen ornaments from my Tickled Pink series that I have completed.  I am also looking forward to my first Christmas tree decorated with the whole set.  These ornaments are especially sentimental to me because they were some of my earliest designs and my very first club series.

Next up on the bars is the Palm Tree tree-- the trees are my favorites in the series.  No doubt, it's because of the cool finishing, gotta love the swirly hanger and the dangling base below.  

July has brought catch up stitching of all kinds-- the ongoing project that I'm working on for this year's Stitcherie group project got a lot of attention this month.  As fitting for the vacation season, KB didn't draw a clue for us this month, choosing instead to give us our "independence" and stitch any part of our canvas we wanted.  Again, I chose to get caught up on all the areas of my canvas I had started but not finished, such as the scarf and skirt, as well as make changes to areas already stitched, such as replacing the beads on her corset with cross stitches made of Fyre Werks.  

Summertime is also great for shopping and catching up on what's new in the stitchy world-- there are so many new thread colors out that I "needed" to get, plus some fabulous sequins as well.  I picked up all of these from one of my several local Houston shops.  Those two new shades of fuchsia pink Silk Lame' braid on the lower left are so gorgeous!  Those will undoubtedly be appearing on a new EyeCandy model soon! 

Hope you have enjoyed catching up with me today, and that you are having a terrific summer!

Trick Or Treat!

I have a whole bag full of Halloween goodies for you today!  First of all is this super cute Bride of Frankenstein treat bag, stitched by Robin Smith and finished by Aristeia.  

Look at all the loot they managed to fit in there! The canvas is only 2.5 inches square so I'm pretty impressed with their "piling it on" skills.  Robin did a great job with the stitching, I especially like the little side swoop hairdo she gave to Mrs. F!  Great job Robin, thanks for sharing your photo!

Suzy Lee shared her stitched Monster Mash cone with me too and here it is!

Suzy is a great stitcher who is always working on amazing projects, so I was pretty flattered when this one made its way into her stitching rotation.  I love her thread choices on this one, especially for the stripes and for the werewolf.  Wonderful work Suzy, thanks for sharing your photo and please do send me another when it comes back from the finisher. 

You may have seen this one on Ruth's blog last week.  This is my Pumpkin Patch canvas being worked on by Judy from a stitch guide by Brenda Hart.  Sure hope Judy will finish it and send me more pictures! 

Finally, I'd like to reintroduce this project.  This is my Witch Hat Topiary that Threads offered as a class last March.  It is now available as a complete kit and they would be happy to send you one!  The stitch guide is amazing for this canvas-- a different stitch and thread for each stripe plus beaded fringe too! 

Hope you've enjoyed these little treats and until next time, Happy Stitching! 

Halloween Spirit!

It has been a fun week for me to follow along on other folk's stitching, they always come up with such great ideas.  I love it when someone makes a change to a stitch guide, it makes me look at a piece in a whole different way.  Check out my Black Cat candy pail (part of my Vintage Halloween series) stitched with RibbonFloss rather than Arctic Rays:

Stitched by Elizabeth Hurd

If you look closely you can see the color she chose is a red/black blend called "Night Ember".  It is a really clever use of the thread and only enhances the "Vintage" look-- great choice Elizabeth!

I have also been following along as two Facebook buddies, Karen and Shelly, challenge each other to come up with stitches for each stripe on two of my Halloween Topiary designs.  Karen is stitching along on the Black Cat tree:

Her pal Shelly has the Bat tree and this is her progress so far:

It's been a blast for me as I wait to see each new photo of the next stripe.  I certainly do like what they have done so far and look forward to see what they will do for the black and white stripes and for the little characters on the bases. 

All this is certainly motivating me to pry myself away from the tail-end of unpacking and get back to stitching.  I have a Challenge myself that I need to start-- over on Stitcherie we have a design-your-own Counted Canvas Challenge going on and I really need to get started on it, especially since it was my idea to do it!  (How's that for pressure, like not showing up for your own party!) I have some cute new Halloween buttons that I picked up at my Hobby Lobby (love that store and this is the first time I've ever lived near one!) to try out on a canvas.  Hope to post some pictures of my own soon!  In the meantime, Happy Stitching!

Only 33 More Unpacking Days Until Halloween!

Normally, my Halloween stuff would have been up and on display for a month now-- right after Labor Day, my Patriotic stuff is put away and Fall and Halloween is taken out for display all the way to Thanksgiving weekend.  This year, I'm running pretty late, my stuff is still in boxes!  I don't know what to do in this new space yet, plus I got rid of a lot of the shelving and tables I used to display my colletion.  To get inspired, I started to look at my photos from Halloweens past:

This is a display from a couple years back featuring three of my favorite Halloween cross stitch designs that I've stitched.  The designers from left to right are Prairie Schooler, Shepherd's Bush and Hillside Samplings.

My favorite Halloween Tree, this one is made from black Maribou feathers and holds all my glass ornaments:

This is a display from last year where I tried to include all of my small Halloween cross stitch and needlepoint ornaments, as well as most of my own EyeCandy treat bags:

The painting above is by Lloyd Garrison, he paints lots of great seasonal designs.  This is one of three Halloween paintings I have by him.

And here are closer shots of the treat bags, this one is "Frankie":

And this is "Witchie".  I could not have been more thrilled with the finishing on both of these!

My set of 6 vintage-styled candy pails:

And finally, "Candy Cornucopia" finished as a very glam Halloween handbag!

Hope this has gotten you in the mood for Halloween as well-- hope I'll be back soon with pictures of this year's display!  Happy Haunting (& Stitching!)