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I just got word that Crescent Colours is adding new colors and a new thread to their hand-dyed line.
Coming out later this month there will be new colors in cotton floss, silk and #5 perle. They will also be bringing out a line of #8 perle with 30 colors.
Crescent also publishes cross stitch charts and there will be some new series in these.
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Thread Alert – New Colors & Threads from Crescent Colors
Best of all subscribing to this full-color publication is free.
The Journal is as treasure trove of ideas and information. There is a What’s New? section which has close-up pictures of all the new colors. These are done by thread and then by color. The pictures are very clear and have the names of the colors on the right. I love having this as a reference. There’s one thing I’d add though, the color numbers after the names, since many shops list them only by the numbers.
This issue also had reviews of two classic books, now available as ebooks, some great ideas for stash organization, and a wonderful article about the charting software used for the magazine.
The heart of Threadworx Journal is the stitch guides. They come in two types, “Keepin’ it simple,” for beginners, and “A bit more to it,” which uses more stitches and puts an emphasis on studying the fiber and its effects. In this issue there is Brrr, a Tent Stitch and beading color study, a Quick Stitch keyring based on as child’s drawing, and a glorious cardinal, using Legacy, this month’s featured thread.
The cardinal is one of my favorite birds and this project looks like so much fun. Two techniques are highlighted here with detailed instructions. You’ll learn how to color the canvas (the design is also available as a painted canvas from Danji or as a chart in the magazine) and get complete instructions for stitching the piece. Side columns include tips to make your stitching easier. Bets of all there are detailed instructions for creating a feathery effect using this thread. Each bird in the series will have this kind of detailed information on a featured thread.
Last, but not least, there is a resource section. In this issue, it’s a table of threads and grounds, so you can pick the right thread for your project.
The next issue releases April 1 and will have a hummingbird as the bird. There are also special subscriber bonuses.
Tuesday, there will be a designer profile of the editor, Beth Kindler Hendzlik.
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Threadworx Journal – product review
Being by picking out the color you want to use, dark blue in this case. Find six different threads in this color. You can pick more than six but group them into six piles. At least one should be an overdye.
Make a list of them and number them. find your self a die.
Star the background and roll the die. The number that comes up is the number of the thread you use. If you’ve made piles of thread, roll the die again and this is the thread within that pile.
When you run out of a thread, pick another thread of that color for that spot. The result is far more dramatic than the effort required.
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Random Needlepoint Background
Then I discovered a technique I call “clouding with color.” It allows me to clump these colors together and get a washed effect, not unlike what you might find on a quilt. The picture above shows you the result. In this thread the green and the violet were the transition colors and I have been able to concentrate them.
When you stitch to create the clouds, you will need to pay attention to the color changes on the thread. Stitch units, but not in straight lines. Make irregular clumps of stitches, so that there isn’t a solid line. I usually do rows of three units, then move to the next line. When the color is about to change, move towards an edge of the stitch and make your new clump there.
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Controlling the Overdyed Thread – Color Clouds
I tried out two of the stranded threads and one single strand thread. The stranded could be plied down to work on 18 mesh canvas or left unplied to work on 13 or 14 mesh. The single strand is about worsted weight and so works well on 14 mesh.
Wool yarn, especially ones used for knitting has a characteristic which can make it hard to strand. Wool will felt and this tangles the fibers in each other so that the strands are hard to separate. It can be done, but if you are unfamiliar with doing this, use single ply or unplied yarns.
Another useful tip for working is to use short stitching lengths. Since this is not virgin wool (wool that hasn’t been used for something else), it is slightly weaker than the wool threads you have used before. While this isn’t a problem at all for knitting, needlepoint is much harder on the threads and reused wool may thin out or shred. Although this happened to me when stitching with these threads, I just ended the thread, cut off the thinned parts and started stitching again. It never was much of a problem and would be less with single strand and unplied yarns.
Sometimes I feel as if we get stuck in color ruts. If you are looking for a thread to spark your color ideas and one which is put in skeins perfect for needlepoint, go try Leethal.net yarns, you’ll be glad you did.
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How did you get the idea to recycle sweaters into yarn and how do you decide when a sweater will work?
I first read about the idea of unraveling sweaters to recycle the yarn years ago (2005 I think) on a craft blog or craftster, found a wool sweater in a thrift store, and unraveled it successfully. But, it was so much work (it’s super hard the first time you do it!) so I didn’t do it again, until a couple years later when I started dyeing. I realized if I was going to get really into dyeing, I had to find a cheaper way to get yarn, so I got back into recycling sweaters, getting faster and better the more I did it. There are a ton of factors to be aware of when shopping for sweaters to recycle (I wrote about them in a Craft Stylish tutorial) – including fiber content and weight, the way the sweater is seamed and constructed, and the condition of the fabric. I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting sweaters that might work, the knit fabric jumping out at me from the crowded racks; then I check the label for fiber content, check the seams, and decide if it looks like good enough yarn to be worth the time and effort of unraveling.
I just love the colors you use, they are so unusual (at least in the needlepoint world), how do you come up with your ideas?
Well, I only dye with non-toxic food dyes, and mainly Kool-Aid. This may seem unprofessional to some, but I’ve been dyeing this way for years, having no problems with colorfastness/fading, and I’ve found ways of getting almost any color I want, though I often don’t plan out my yarns completely before dyeing. I’ve always enjoyed experimentation, and I always treat dyeing as experimenting! With a background in visual art (I majored in media arts and minored in studio art), I have been working with color theory for as long as I can remember, and I love playing with unexpected color combinations. So, with dyeing, I’ll often start with one color, see how it’s looking, and decide where to go next – decide if I want to add a contrasting/complimentary color to give the yarn a more dramatic look, or add similar shades, for a more subtle yarn. I don’t really look to anything in the world for color concepts, but I’m sure I’m subconsciously influenced by everything around me when I’m doing anything creative, including dyeing.
What’s the process you use for dyeing the threads?
I use Kool-Aid packets and food coloring (with vinegar), sometimes one or the other, often times a combination of the two. I use different methods – stove top, crock pot, and microwave once in awhile – and different processes depending on the yarn I’m going for. If I want a more solid look, I mix the dye in the stove top dyepot, or the crock pot, and drop the yarn into the dye. More often though, I add the yarn to the water first, let it heat up a bit, then add the dye, to get more color separation. If I’m dyeing a self-striping yarn, I separate the yarn into sections and dye each one at a time; for a variegated yarn, it’s much more experimental, dropping the whole hank in at once, and adding different colors to different sides of the dyepot. Sometimes I mix colors in a cup with water first and pour it in, sometimes I sprinkle/drip the dye straight into the dyepot over the yarn.
Some of your threads are stranded, some single strands. How do you decide when a yarn needs to be stranded?
I don’t decide – the sweater makers do. Many (most?) mass-made sweaters are knit stranded; you can’t really tell by looking at them, but once you start unraveling you realize. It would take a huge amount of time and work to un-strand a stranded yarn from a recycled sweater, so however the yarn is when I unravel it, that’s how my yarn will be. Usually the strands are slightly felted together, so I don’t think it hurts the knitting/crochet/needlepoint process much.
Are you thinking about expanding your line to include other natural fibers and blends, like cotton or silk?
I do make yarns from other recycled fibers sometimes, but I make them into spun recycled yarns, not dyed. It’s a whole other process to dye non-animal fibers like cotton and silk, which is toxic and I would need a dyeing area that’s not also my kitchen if I were to pursue it. So, I take recycled cotton, etc, and I spin it with my spinning wheel, and ply it together with other recycled yarns and/or threads. I don’t do as much of this, but now that I’ve started my Quick Knits Club I’m including this type of yarn in the club each month, and I may start adding more to my shop soon.
Tomorrow’s post will be my review of these delightful threads and using them for needlepoint.
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Lee Meredith of Leethal.net – Designer Profile
I’ve come across some delightful new needlepoint products for you to look for at your local shop. Here’s a round-up of some of them.
CBK Needlepoint Collections has added a new artist, Designs by Karen. These designs feature animals against light backgrounds on 18 mesh.
Lucinda Gregory Rice is doing custom portraits of your pet in hand-painted canvas. The size of the design is 12″ x 16″. She is also doing a series of monthly Bargello ornament leaflets, printed on cardstock and three-hole punched.
Raymond Crawford has a charming set of destinations canvases. They are 9″ x 3″ and spell out the place with reminders of what makes it great.
River Silks has a stunning new Kit to Go featuring a pansies design by Leigh Richardson (Designs by Leigh). The kit has everything you need to stitch the design. They have also added a new series of colors, overdyes, which are bright colors on white. Stunning!
Barrani Studios has a 12-mesh design which has a rabbit running against a Bargello background. The grass is one pattern and the sky another. It comes as a complete kit.
Elizabeth Bradley has added a kit for a nasturtium and butterfly border. It is available in all nine background colors.
Sudberry is making wooden sticks in two sizes for holding floss or yarn. They are a lovely way to keep track of your threads.
Weeks Dye Works is now packaging a color assortment of the threads for stitching water. They also have two new colors of floss, Almond Bar and Kris’ Bon Bon.
Presencia has added new colors to their line of perle cottons.
Nordic Needle has new 3 1/4″ scissors with fine pointed tips. Their plastic handles come in three colors.
The Gentle Art also has a new collection, the Harvest Collection. It includes Cinnamon Bread, Black Walnut, Indian Corn, Plumberry, Wood Pile, and Wheat Fields.
Threadworx recently let folks know that they will be expanding their line of overdyed metallic and the new colors will include 6 glow in the dark shades. They have also added 13 new colors of Expressions (old Spring II). They have also added overdyed Pearl #12, which is wonderful for overstitching, hardanger and blackwork.
The Elizabeth Turner Collection finishes belts as well as making belt canvases. They have two new finishes, Ostrich and Croc. Croc is available in black. Ostrich is available in brown, pink, lime green, orange, red, and black.
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New Needlepoint Products – August 2009
If you love threads and needlepoint, you have probably used and loved one or another kind of hand-dyed thread. I was crazy for the process of dying threads not too many years after I learned how to needlepoint and have made many forays into dyeing threads and canvases.
One of my earliest attempts used undyed Persian wool which I dyed in several shades of the same color and used to make a stitch sampler, with stitches from The Needlepoint Book. I have also dyed threads with Kool-aid, tea, and painted threads.
Recently Sharon B wrote a post about how she hand dyes threads. It’s an excellent overview of the process and looks very straightforward.
If you want to dye your own threads, the best resource is Dharma Trading Company in San Rafael, Ca. They have everything you need, including the best kinds of dye and paint, lots of instructions and pictures of inspiring results. The one difficulty is that you will have to adapt instructions for the smaller amounts of yarn used for needlepoint. Most dyeing instructions are geared to knitting yarns and make large quantities.
I hoard threads that might work (white, pale gray, cream, ecru, and very light pastels) to dye. If I find some at a thrift shop, I buy it. I’ll pull some out of my stash and once done, keep it to use in various projects.
But what if your life doesn’t allow you to dye threads?
We’re in luck because there are many people doing hand-dyed threads. Leethal.net (there is an upcoming post about her), recycles sweaters into yarn, she dyes into glorious color combinations. It’s lovely for needlepoint.
Sassa Lynne in England makes lovely hand-dyed threads, including perle, viscose, and matte cotton, that I have used in many projects. Her product packs have several threads in marching colors. They also sell on etsy. I search in supplies for “hand-dyed threads” to find additional companies. Every time I do this I find more to love.
I’ve also found some interesting people by putting “hand dyed fibers” into Google. Many of these companies make knitting yarns. Sock weight is the best size for needlepoint and is about the same weight as Vineyard Merino.
And all this is beside the hand-dyed companies we know and love, such as Caron Collection, Threadworx, Thread Gatherer, Crescent Colors, Dinky Dyes, Gloriana, Thread Gatherer, Weeks Dye Works, and many more.
It’s a wonderful time to be in love with color and threads!
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Hand-dyeing Threads
The technique, needle blending, is useful for shading, when you can’t find the right shade or just tom give your needlepoint an interesting effect. The first time I did it was for these pansies, because there was no floss in the color I needed.
Jenny does embroidery on cloth, but the process is the same for needlepoint. In her pictures she uses two wildly different colors, so you can see clearly how the process works, but most of the time, you will use closely related shades (pictured above).
Link:
Thread Blending Tutorial
When I bought them I thought I could just switch one thread for another, but it isn’t quite so easy. The original threads have a range of values from light to dark, mine are mostly light. And they have a selection of multi-color threads and ones with shades of one color, I only have one or two single color threads.
This happens to many stitchers, so I thought I would share with you how I have planned my threads out before I begin to stitch. First I wrote down the blocks where each thread is used. Then I made a list of single color and multi-color blocks. I assigned one of my threads to each single color block and wrote those down in my directions. Of the 30 blocks, 18 are single color.
I pulled out my all pink shade and was left with nine threads. I arranged them in an order I liked and assigned one to each block and recorded my choices in the instructions. Once I did this I double checked against the picture to be sure I didn’t have the same thread next to itself.
I looked at my threads and they divided into two groups, those which have pink and those which do not. Because my last overdye is shades of pink, it should coordinate with all the other pinks threads. I checked this by laying out the threads and putting the pink over them. I can do another big chunk of blocks by combining the pinks and one of these overdyes. So I did this, once again checking to be sure that the second color is nicely distributed. The pink is sometimes the main color and sometimes the accent.
As I worked through these blocks, a couple of them I changed to a single color, thinking they would work better this way. At the end of this I was left with six blocks to do. One used three colors and most of the others were next to two color blocks. Now it was time to raid my stash for some accent colors. In my cut skeins of Watercolours, I didn’t find anything, so I turned to my other hand-dyed threads.
I found a hand-dyed but dark periwinkle and a reddish-violet Watercolours. Because the periwinkle was so dark I used it with two of the other overdyes for the blocks that needed a strong contrast. That took care of three of the six.
The fuchsia combined very nicely with one of the two overdyes to do two more blocks which left me with only the three color block. In this block the third color is a frame, so I went back to my stash and found a dark blue with enough contrast to the green for the border and the other two threads for the block to be a contrast.
Do I know if this all will work out? No, but I feel more confident that I will have a balanced piece when I am finished. I think of my choices as “serving suggestions only.” I will change them if I find it’s needed, but I have a plan using my thread choices.
The rest is here:
Substituting Colors – Plan It in Advance
Etsy Shop for unkamengifts