black-metallic

If you don’t mount your needlepoint on a frame, you have an on-going problem. I find that I feel as though I’m battling with the canvas all the time to find the place where I am stitching. I’m afraid I’ll stitch the canvas to itself and get cramps in my hands from scrunching up the canvas.

Canvas Clips from Dream House Ventures can solve many of these problems. The package has two pairs of clips in it, small and large. Like bobby pins, they are wavy on one side and straight on the other.

You use the by rolling the canvas and placing them (wavy side in) at either end. This creates a smaller item to hold and protects the canvas from the wear scrunching it can cause.

I tried the clips on two different canvases and compared it to stitching the same canvas without clips. By and large they did what they are supposed to do; made the canvas easier to hold while making the area to be stitched clearly visible.

One of the canvases I used is an older canvas so it is very soft. While the clips did keep the piece in a roll, it still flopped around. Although it was easier to stitch, the flopping meant that the clip on the end away from where I was stitching popped out, repeatedly. Admittedly this canvas is in very bad shape, but this is something to note because not all canvases will have a good tight fit.

The second canvases was newer. There were no problems here with the clips coming off; they worked beautifully. However newer canvas still has lots of sizing in it. It still kept the roll after I removed the clips, so even my stitching without them went well.

This is a great and useful tool for those who like to stitch their needlepoint in hand.

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Canvas Clips – Product Review

Beam N Read LED Light – Product Review

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

I often stitch at night while we watch TV. Sometimes my DH doesn’t like the light on, so off goes the light and thus my stitching ends for the evening.

But not now. With the Beam N Read LED Light, I can stitch without any other lights and see my needlepoint just fine.

I tested both the 3 and 6 light sizes. They run on AA batteries (included with the 3 light size but not with the 6) and hang around your neck with a webbing strap.

I found that while the 3 light size was just fine when using the unfiltered light, the 6 light size was far too bright when unfiltered; brighter than the regular light I use.

The lights come with filters as well. The 3 light comes with a dark pink filter for night vision. I found that it worked well, making things nicely clear at night. While the colors of my needlework were not true, the contrast was good.

The 6 light comes with two different filters, shown in the picture, one red and one yellow. I loved the yellow filter. When I used it, my DH didn’t even know that I had a light on and I could stitch in comfort.

I didn’t like the red filter much at all, I felt as if it left things too dark for the kind of fine details needlepoint requires.

The 6 light also comes with a magnifier which I didn’t try.

he only fault I could find was in the strap. One side came undone almost immediately. I tried rethreading, and even tying it on, but nothing works for more than a few minutes. As a result, I just rest it on my chest.

These lights, in either size, will be great additions to your needlepoint tool kit.

Please note: These lights were provided to me by the manifacturer for review purposes.

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Beam N Read LED Light – Product Review

Nature’s Palette Canvas – Product Review

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

How often have you thought to yourself that the standard colors of canvas just aren’t what you need? Of course, you could color the canvas yourself, but that’s lots of work and, like me, you might not be that good at it.

These canvases are painted so that the background is colored, so you are free to stitch them lightly or not at all. There are 30 colors available and they come in two standard cuts, 10 and 20 inch squares. Needlepoint designers can order other sizes, so you will find designers, such as Leigh using them for their designs, often in special colors.

There are four groups of colors: solid, custom, premium, and jewel.

The solid colors are an almost even color. You would almost think they were dyed, but turn the canvas over and you’ll see the white of unpainted canvas.

Custom colors are either a solid with flecks of a second color, or mottled shades if two or more colors (the picture above is on a custom canvas).

Premium canvases come in three colors; blue with sliver, red with gold, and harvest. The metal/color combinations are more edgy with the metallic looking as if it had bee splashed on.

There are twelve colors in the Jewel Collection, but I haven’t tried them yet.

In stitching these two ornaments, I found the canvas took a little getting used to. While the layer of paint is very thin, it is still there, making the canvas a bit stiff. You also need to think out, before you begin to stitch the placement of the design so that the canvas is used to its best advantage.

But I liked them and will be using them for some of the needlepoint club pieces coming in 2012.

You can see swatches of all the colors and order the canvas at Nature’s Palette website.

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Nature’s Palette Canvas – Product Review

Punch up Metallic Canvas Backgrounds

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

needlepoint cactus on metallic canvas and metallic threads, stitched by janet perry

Do you ever feel as if metallic canvas is not quite metallic enough?

Today learn how metallic canvas is constructed and discover a way to punch up the glitz on it.

Metallic canvas is mono needlepoint canvas with two different threads. The warp (vertical) threads are all the same cotton threads as non-metallic canvas. The weft (horizontal) are made from a thread that combines the regular thread with a thin metallic in either gold, silver, or opalescent. These threads are similar in construction to threads such as Vineyard Silks Shimmer or Planet Earth Opal. Therefore the metallic will show up only occasionally and only if the weft thread is on top (i.e. horizontal intersections).

Recently I was making a piece on this canvas and wanted there to be more metallic. By combining an open stitch, opalescent canvas and a thread to match the metallic in the canvas, I got a great look.

Begin by looking for the thread. Look for something sparkly. The thread here is Winter from Rainbow Gallery, other possibilities include Kreinik 032 (pearl), Crystal Braid, and Nordic Gold. Black opalescent will be harder to find, but look for a black thread with an opalescent shine (colors) instead of a white, silver, or gray shine.

Now pick your stitch. Any open Tent Stitch pattern will work. I used Skip Tent but other ones, such as Background Stitch (below) that have more skipped intersections will work.

I made my stitch on the horizontal intersections. This covered some metallic intersections but left some uncovered. If you want all of them uncovered, stitch on vertical intersections.

The picture above shows the result, with some of the background left unstitched for comparison.

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Punch up Metallic Canvas Backgrounds

Needlepoint Stitch Sampler Book Now Available

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Books,Nuts About Needlepoint

canary sapphire heart needlepoint stitch sampler, designed by Janet Perry

just one of five new samplers in my new ebook

This cheerful yellow sapphire heart is the canary sapphire sampler from my new st itch sampler ebook, premiering today. The sapphires has over 80 stitches to mix and match to make unique needlepoint hearts.

Collected and newly charted, you’ll find stitches from older designers such as Genny Morrow and Chottie Anderson as well as ones designed by today’s top teachers such as Brenda Hart and Tony Minieri. The hearts are a perfect little canvas for you to try out color schemes, threads, and stitches. This book helps you every step of the way.

You’ll learn about threads, find three ways to create a color scheme for your heart and will be able to discover any stitch used in any of the samplers and get it’s chart easily. I designed it in a two column format with a minimum of text so that it is compact and easy to use. It’s a great reference for any stitcher.

The book, with color pictures of all five hearts is available now as a ebook in PDF format. Click the button to buy it via PayPal. If you want the book, but prefer not to use PayPal, please email me.

As a special introductory offer you can get both The Sapphires and Heart Sampler at a for just $1 more. Click the button below to purchase

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Needlepoint Stitch Sampler Book Now Available

Black and White Canvas – Product Review

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

needlepoint mini patchwork star on black and white zweigart canvas, designed by janet perry

black & white canvas in action

As I stitched this little quilt block on Zweigart’s black and white canvas one word kept coming to mind — hard.

This canvas is tweeded. One direction has black threads, the other white. While the individual threads are the same as mono canvas, the woven effect is not and therein lies the problem. As you an see from the picture the white threads are more prominent.

While that is not a bad thing for the finished effect it makes stitching and counting extremely difficult. I felt as if the holes in the canvas “melted” into the white threads. And, although I counted threads and the stitches are correct, much of the time I felt as if my stitches were not true.

Add to this the problem that you can’t put a dark cloth or a light cloth under it to see and you have a canvas not for the faint of heart.

Even so, the finished effect is wonderful, so I would seek out painted canvases thaat use it as the background.

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Black and White Canvas – Product Review