NutsAboutNeedlepoint

While there are several small stitch reference books out there, they generally fall into two categories. Some are designed for beginning stitchers. The other type includes only diagrams, but no explanations.

Into this world come these two books. I got mine from Thistle Needleworks, but your shop may have their own branded copies of them. They are small (3�5), spiral-bound books that cover 48 stitches each.

Printed on thick paper, one page is given to each stitch. At the front of the book is a one page index of all the stitches.

Each stitch has a large clear diagram (usually not numbered) that may include some stitch variations. Next to the diagram is what makes these books a real treasure. They have explanatory notes. These might include an explanation of the stitch, notes of how to make it, suggestions for changes, thread suggestions, and, quite often suggestions on how to use it.

Opening the book at random, I found Mayan (a new stitch to me). Reading, I learned that it’s a fast stitch for backgrounds that should be made in vertical rows. There were also suggestions for the color of thread that should be used and an idea for how to modify it to make a border.

Ideas such as these burst from the pages of the book. It’s as if Julie Sackett (the author) was right next to you making stitch suggestions.

Another great thing about the books is that they aren’t just stitches for beginning stitchers, while all the basic are covered, you’ll also find more challenging stitches, such as Staggered Cross (this one always defeats me), as well as more advanced techniques such as laidwork.

Each book ends with several pages of grids for you to chart your own stitches. Inside the back cover of Quick Stitch Reference is a guide to needle sizes. In the same place in More Quick Stitch Reference is a helpful set of tips for backgrounds and laid fillings.

In spite of some charts having compensating stitches that are hard to distinguish from the main stitch, these two books are real winners.

The rest is here:
Quick Stitch Reference & More Quick Stitch Reference – Books Review

Learn Bargello with Erica Wilson

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Erica Wilson's bargello needlepoint boots from her PBS series in 1971

Thanks to the blog, Retro Renovation, we have a long (almost 15 minutes) seqment on Bargello. She shows examples of the stitching (including these great boots), she talks about the history of Bargello, show us how to start stitching and then shows us a lovely Jack-in-the-Pulpit design that she is stitching.

It’s great stuff and the blog post that accompanies it has information on finding Erica’s kits, both old and new.

The clip is from 1971, so it was filmed not long after I had begun to do needlepoint. I was astonished by the things that had changed. She found the center of the canvas by folding it and drawing down the creases with a pencil. Don’t do this at home. Unless you use a very hard pencil (#4) lead will rub off and discolor our threads. Today we’d measure and baste or mark with a permanent marker made for canvas.

!0 mesh canvas is what was normally used for Bargello back then, today we would use 13, 14, or 18. Erica stitches her Bargello using a big quilting floor hoop. Today we would not do this, it wastes canvas (because it needs to be much bigger than the hoop to stay in place), and we’d find the tension to be too loose. Better to use stretcher bars instead.

But it was so inspiring to watch this.

On YouTube, you can also see her stitching an owl with lots of textured stitches, as well as a video of her using crewel to upholster a chair.

Link:
Learn Bargello with Erica Wilson

Make Roses Easily with this Video

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In BeStitched wonderful series of needlepoint videos, they have one for a great “more bang for the buck” technique. It shows how to use silk ribbon and loose bullion knots to make lovely simple ribbon roses.

I was, I admit, skeptical because bullions are not my favorite stitches, but this technique is so simple and so lovely that you’l start looking for canvases with swathes of roses just so you can try it.

Click on the link above to learn how.

Go here to read the rest:
Make Roses Easily with this Video

See Designing Women’s Canvases On-line

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I love Designing Women’s Canvases and have stitched many over the years. My favorites are their crosses which come in such a wide selection of styles.

Recently Canvas Connection took over their line of canvases. Happily the have an extensive website and have a whole section of it devoted to the Designing Women canvases. Go to their home page and click on “Designing Women” to see 17 pages of designs. Each collection of canvases is grouped together, with a thumbnail (not clickable) and the design number. Each collection also has the size and mesh listed. On collections spanning multiple pages, this information is on each page.

While the pictures aren’t large, they are clear. On a few of the pages, you’ll find pictures of finished items.

Navigation through the collection is only through the page number links at the top of every page. There is no index of which designs are on which page, nor is there a search function.

To help you out, I’ve put together a little list of which pages have which kind of designs.

Angels – 1
Crosses – 2,3
Christian Symbols – 4, 5
Jewish Symbols – 6
Movie Star Clothes, Uppity Shoes, & Ladies at Tea – 7
Christmas Stockings – 8 – 12
Royals, including Uppity Women – 13 (tea cosies) and 14
Snowmen & Penguins – 15
Santas – 16, 17

Creating a Color Scheme

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in Nuts About Needlepoint,Paint

This Japanese woodblock by Hasui will become the basis for a needlepoint color scheme.

Let’s Chip It is a free on-line service from Sherwin-Williams Paints.

Find an image URL you like and enter it in the box, click and you’ll get back a set of color chips matched to Sherwin-Williams paints.

While it’s designed to help you put together a coordinated paint scheme for a room, that set of chips can be the start of so many other things.

a set of colors for a geometric design
a way to change colors on a painted canvas
the start of a color scheme for a large stitch sampler (like the upcoming projects from CyberPointers)
a color sequence for Bargello
finding the paint colors to set off that needlepoint perfectly
finding the perfect color for a mat or backing fabric

I’m currently intrigued by the art of Hasui, a 20th-Century Japanese woodblock artist who worked in the traditional Ukiyo-e style. So I started with the piece of a temple in cherry blossoms pictured here. I just loved the contrast of the flowers with the bold red of the temple.

But how would I translate that to the abstract colors of Bargello?

Color suggestions from Sherwin-Williams Let's Chip It tool

Here’s the result. While I’m disappointed because it didn’t pick up that wonderful red (probably not a paint color), I do see something I can use here. Notice that, just as in the original print, pink is just an accent against a more neutral background.

Why not do a line Bargello with wide stripes of lines of teal and gray interspersed with single lines alternating between pink and red? Could be very interesting.

This is a useful color tool, especially if you understand its limitations. You won’t find colors here that don’t exist in paint. It’s going to bring out the lighter colors, neutrals, and muted shades common to paint. But since our needlepoint lives in our homes, this isn’t a bad thing.

Link:
Creating a Color Scheme

REd Barn Yarns Wool – Thread Review

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nelsons victory needlepoint quilt block featuring glorian duchess pele and red barn yarns wool, designed and stitched by needlepoint expert janet m.perry

This original quilt block design shows off Red Barn Yarns' Persian Wool

Red Barn Yarn is a new thread and yarn company, specializing in hand-dyed colors in what they call “tonal solids.” Because the owner does needlepoint they have a lovely needlepoint yarn among their offerings. The three-ply wool is available in either 8 yard skeins or 162-yard hanks (4 oz). You can see samples of all their colors on their site.

Like most knitting yarn companies the color range is small, about 40 colors, but they are lovely.

Theresa from Homestead clued me into them and I’m so glad she did. I used the thread on two recent pieces, the quilt block and the kimono, reproduced below.

camellia kimono needlepoint by lee needle arts, stitched by needlepoint expert janet m. perry

This Lee Needle Arts kimono is a showcase for many threads, including Red Barn Yarns Persian Wool

THe kimono was stitched in Continental and the color variation is slight. The quilt block is stitched in Milanese and there is more variation, but not as much as most overdyes. It almost seems like a faded old-fashioned look.

I enjoyed using this thread. One ply gave thick coverage on 18; it would be perfect on 16. It really shone in the loner stitches of Milanese. It covered easily and was so much fun to use.

Unlike older kinds of Persian, all the threads were the same thickness, so there was no waste.

Wool is so fun to use for stitching, but it has become less popular in recent years, which is a shame. Recent supply problems of various kinds have made it even harder to find. But it’s worth seeking out and Red Barn’s Persian will make simply lovely needlepoint.

Read more from the original source:
REd Barn Yarns Wool – Thread Review

Duchess Silk Perle – Thread Review

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This original quilt block design shows off Glorian's Duchess Perle in Corduroy & Rhodes Stitches

While I could be accused of never seeing a thread I didn’t like (although this is untrue), there are few threads I’ve used that I like as much as Gloriana’s Duchess Silk.

You can see the testament to this throughout this review.I have used this thread in every canvas but one that did not come kitted with threads since I came home from Phoenix.

Sized about the same as Silk & Ivory or Vineyard Silk, I’d call it a fat Perle #5. It’s very lofty, so it can compress enough for Tent Stitch on 18 mesh for many stitchers. In the quilt block project pictured above, you can see how the pink Tent Stitches compress and are lower than the longer Diagonal Gobelins in the same patches.

This Lee Needle Arts kimono is a showcase for many threads, including Gloriana Duchess Perle

But it’s wonderful for longer stitches and for knots (center of flowers in the kimono). You can see how the size of the knots affects the color. The left flower has single wrap knots. They are tight (compressed thread) and quite small. The right flower has two-wrap knots. They are a bit looser, more fluffy and show a greater variation in color.

Gloriana’s other perles, Princess Perle and Princess Perle Petite, are more shiny and have a much tighter twist than Duchess does. This gives interesting effects when you combine them. I think it could be cool to do base stitching in Duchess with overstitching in Princess.

painted-stitches needlepoint canvas, stitched by needlepoint expert janet m. perry

This vintage painted stitches canvas uses Gloriana Duchess Silk for the Jacquard and Linenfold Stitches

The colors I have seem to fall into three groups. Solid, such as the red and ecru used on the painted stitches tree above. Very softly shaded, such as the pink in the quilt block. The variation here can be seen easily in the skein, but is quite subtle when the stitch is done in vertical or horizontal rows. It is, however, too much for diagonal rows.

petei needlepoint mini-sock showing rabbits, stitched by needlepoint expert janet m. perry

This Petei mini-sock uses Duchess Perle for the bunnies.

The final group, semi-solids, can be seen in the brown bunnies on the Petei mini-sock above. With two sizes of bunnies you can see how the variation works. The changes are obvious on the larger bunny and show how these kind of threads must be used with correctly done Continental as the Tent Stitch.

Like many silk threads, Duchess Perle has directional light. This means that the color changes, depending on the direction of the stitch. Not only does the color change but, looking at the quilt square sitting next to me, so does the amount of sheen. The reverse stitches are both darker and more matte than the regular stitches. This is not true of the violet wool next to it.

This characteristic is one that you can exploit easily to bring depth to your needlepoint. It will give additional depth to four-way Bargello. You can make items in the background recede slightly by stitching them in reverse stitches. Finally, a stitch going in both directions, such as Criss-cross Hungarian, will be more interesting because it will have even more texture.

There are many stitchers who are afraid that silk is hard to use. If so, try Duchess Perle. It is a single-ply thread, so there is no stripping and laying. It’s lofty size makes it highly adaptable. Finally it stitches like a dream.

I can’t wait to get back to the next project which, of course, uses it again.

The rest is here:
Duchess Silk Perle – Thread Review

Running a Bit Late . . .

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Due to not enough sleep, a bad headache, and too many other things going on, today’s post will be a bit late. Look for it no later then 10AM Pacific.

Sorry for the delay.

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Running a Bit Late . . .

DMC Color Variations – Thread Review

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needlepoint hawaiian quilt from Keri Designs stitched by needlepoint expert janet me perry using DMC color variations threads

This Hawaiian quilt by Keri Designs uses DMC Color Variations for the fruit and the borders.

At the recent TNNA Market DMC released 24 new colors in their Color Variations line. They are available in both #5 perle and floss. They bring the number of colors in the line to 60.

I have used the perle before, but this little piece was my first chance to use the floss.

A note about the new colors. There is a wonderful variety of colors, here. There are semi-solids or shades of a single hue in several colors, including three greens, two gold,the wonderful red seen in the border, three great blues (including a pale one that would be great for skies), and a violet. Some of these are very subtle, but others have almost as much variation as DMC’s variegated colors.

They are designed to be used like the many popular lines of overdyed and hand-dyed thread and they make great substitutions for them However, as you can see from the piece I stitched (a Keri Designs Hawaiian quilt), the color transitions are more sudden than in many hand-dyes. The color runs seem to be a bit shorted as well.

What this means is that those transitional colors that are the mixtures of two adjacent colors in a hand-dye are absent here. This makes the colors clearer, and the transitions sharper. Using these threads you won’t find your color diluted by these shades. However if you like that transition or want those intermediate shades, these threads won’t work for you.

For me, it really depends on the project. IN this piece I used floss for the breadfruit, both on its own (center fruit) and combined with a fine metallic (corner fruit). As you can see one color predominates, but the floss worked will in both applications. The perle was used for the border. Here you can see the length of the color run and how sudden the transition can be.

One note, the floss uses DMC’s newer wrappers. They are one long piece. They are different, but they do make it much easier to use the skeins as pull skeins.

I liked both these threads and I expect to be using them much more often in my work.

There are also some new shades that are combinations of analogous colors. I particularly like the three “berry” shades that are combinations of red-violet/pink and violet. The light, medium, and dark shades could make an interesting combination. Others of this type include a vivid autumn leaves shade and a wonderful combo of dark browns and grays that would be perfect for bark.

But perhaps I was most taken with the three true multi-colors. All of them have lots more white than is often seen in overdyed thread and this gives them an appealing lightness. Purple Pansy combines, white with two shades of violet and yellow. Very Merry is a Christmas combination with red being more an accent than an equal partner. My favorite is Cotton Candy, a great combination of pink, blue, and white that would be so perfect for baby presents.

Please note: These threads were provided to me as part of DMC’s designer program. I was not compensated for this review.

More here:
DMC Color Variations – Thread Review