Patterns

Originally posted 2008-10-23 06:52:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

With the renewed interest in free embroidery (embroidery on a on-counted ground or fabric), you can find lots of pretty cool free patterns intended to transfer onto a piece of fabric.

But you can just as easily transfer them onto apiece of needlepoint canvas and use them as a line-drawing for your needlepoint.

Today we are going to talk about what to look for when you want to do this and tomorrow we will begin a step-by-step tutorial on how to go from a free pattern on the Web to a finished needlepoint.

When you look at embroidery transfer designs, what you see are the lines of the design which will be covered with stitching. Most free embroidery of this type relies on the fabric to covey the design and so they have lots of open spaces.

This is good for us as needlepointers because we will fill those areas up with stitches.
Tip #1 Look for designs with open areas which aren’t filled with lots of lines to be covered.

But (isn’t there always a but), in free embroidery other details, like facial expression are conveyed with lines and other details as well.

Here is where you have a problem. When you embroider on cloth you can stick a stitch anywhere, it can be any angle, it can stop or start anyplace. But with needlepoint you are stuck with the grid. The bigger the wholes, the fewer details you can convey. So a design with too many little details will lose them when changed to needlepoint.

It’s like looking at a scene through a screen as opposed to through a window. With the screen you can see everything, yes, but you lose detail. Needlepoint canvas is the screen.

In conclusion I thought today I would share with you some free embroidery sites where you can download new and vintage embroidery patterns.

If you want to play along with the tutorial, check back tomorrow to see the Arts & Crafts design I picked from this site. But you can pick one which suits your style and your mood and stitch away.

Check the designs out at these sites:
Embroidery Patterns – This Flickr album has many charming designs, many looking like children’s book illustrations.
TipNut – has a listing of all kinds of embroidery projects. Click on the link to find the particular project and then look through the article to find the pattern. Many of these are vintage and vintage style.
Meggiecat – has links to lots of great vintage patterns.
Needle n’Thread – Scroll down past the text ads to find many lovely patterns, often in traditional, Victorian, and Arts & Crafts styles.
Doe-c-doe – Every Thursday she showcases vintage embroidery and embroidery patterns. I’ve found lots of good things here.
Vintage Transfer Designs – Lots of great retro and vintage transfers.
Antique Pattern Library – This site is harder to use. It’s a list of vintage embroidery publiations available to download on the Web.

I’m sure you will find something to suit your fancy here. We’ll start the project tomorrow!

Read this article:
Free Embroidery Patterns

Happy Holidays from Kreinik

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

Kreinik has added new free projects for the holidays to their website.

There are eight days of Hanukkah projects, with four needlepoint porjects currently, and four CRoss Stitch projects coming next week.

Throughout the month, they will be adding 25 free Christmas projects using a variety of techniques and Kreinik products. The link takes you to a calender that has thumbnails of them all.

Tomorrow a new free ornament pattern by me, I’m charting it today.

Read the original here:
Happy Holidays from Kreinik

Storage Tips for Kreinik Spools

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

This is most definitely one of those “Do as I say, not as I do” posts (Mom said there would be days like this).

Kreinik spools can be a real bear to keep organized. Recently on Facebook, Elaine Withrow Stevens had a picture of the compartment box she uses to store her Kreinik spools. She lets us know where she got them and the picture shows how well they store the spools, either flat or upright.

I had forgotten about this method of storage. That’s dumb because at least two stores I know of store them this way. As a customer it irritates me because I can’t see the threads easily. It was especially bad at the place where the boxes weren’t clear AND she kept them behind her desk out of sight and out of reach (that shop is no longer open).

But it’s fantastic for storage if you have space.

I keep mine, sorted by size in some of my card catalog drawers (not good for knowing how much I have of something.

See the original post here:
Storage Tips for Kreinik Spools

Gallery of Free Middle Eastern Patterns for Blackwork, Pattern Darning & Counted Needlework

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

In this outstanding library of counted patterns (thanks to Denise of CraftGossip for pointing it out), you’ll find dozens of motifs from the riches of traditional Middle Eastern embroidery.

The index page for the designs breaks them into technique. It shows a thumbnail of each design,describes it, and provides information about the source.

Click on the title to get the full-size chart. The pieces cover a broad range of dates, from the 12th Century to today and come from many countries.

It’s a marvelous resources and a wonderful source of ideas.

More here:
Gallery of Free Middle Eastern Patterns for Blackwork, Pattern Darning & Counted Needlework

Free Project Alert – Plastic Canvas & Dyed Floss Necklace

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in accessories,Jewelry,Nuts About Needlepoint

Michael’s has complete instructions for a simple pendant stitched on plastic canvas using white floss. More floss is used for the necklace itself.

The intriguing thing is that the whole thing is dyed after it’s put together.

The necklace is pictured here and there is a link to the downloadable pattern at the bottom of the page.

Read the original:
Free Project Alert – Plastic Canvas & Dyed Floss Necklace

Lots of Free Needlepoint Patterns

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Halloween,Nuts About Needlepoint

Originally posted 2008-11-03 07:41:21. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

This week I came across two delightful needlepoint patterns.

The first is a Flickr gallery of patterns from an antique needlepoint book.

These books are old, out of copyright, and fantastic sources of needlepoint charts. I particularly like their border ideas.

The second is a Halloween (I know it’s a little late) set from Laura Perin of a bat and a cat. They are at the top of her Free Patterns page. They are made from Scotch Stitches and are just adorable. If you wanted a Christmas cat, just change the colors of the borders to Christmas colors and get a great design. I like that idea so much I think I’ll do that.

Happy stitching!

Blackwork: Royal School of Needlework Essential Stitch Guides – Book Review

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

Becky Hogg, Search Press (Turnbridge Wells, UK, 2010) ISBN:978-1-84448-551-2, $21.95

This book is one in a series on different techniques done under the banner of the Royal School of Needlework. In fact the author has both studied and worked there. This book is an excellent introduction to Blackwork with a strong emphasis on the use of the technique as a fill for outlined shapes and for shading.

The stitched examples lavishly illustrate the book. Many are astonishingly complex and show off the use of Blackwork in classic and contemporary designs. Your jaw will drop (mine did) at the level of detail and shading you can get with this technique.

The book begins with a history of Blackwork, then follows with a discussion of materials and how to frame your fabric so it is tight. Here they use a type of traditional embroidery frame called a slate frame, where the fabric is bound with twill tape and then laced onto the frame (as an aside, this is about the best explanation of how to do this I’ve seen).

Then it’s on to topics specifically applied to Blackwork. You’ll learn about design principles, transferring the design, the two main stitches used in Blackwork and other stitches that are used for outlining and emphasis.

There is an extensive section on Blackwork patterns, with each pattern show both stitched and charted. As is traditional in Blackwork, the stitches are shown on the lines and the diagrams are not numbered. Over 30 Blackwork patterns are shown, along with some darning patterns. Throughout you’ll see examples of completed Blackwork with short explanations. Many of the patterns here are simple, but they do a wonderful job of conveying texture and shading and would be lovely done on needlepoint canvas.

The next section discusses shading, which is a fundamental technique when using Blackwork in needlework. You’ll learn about the two main ways to shade:by changing the thread thickness or by breaking up the pattern. You can also combine the two to get even more subtle effects.

The final section has ideas for how you can expand your use of this technique.

The book is spiral bound in a hard cover so it can lay flat.

Although there are no projects for you to stitch in this book, it is a wonderful guide to traditional Blackwork and will fill you with ideas.

Excerpt from:
Blackwork: Royal School of Needlework Essential Stitch Guides – Book Review

Great New Book on Blackwork in Needlepoint – Book Review

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

Blackwork is used as a background in this canvas from Tink Boord-Dill, with a stitch guide by Janet M. Perry

Everything ‘Blackwork’ is New Again, Julia Key Snyder, self-published, 2011 (available at needlepoint shops)

I love Blackwork and love to do it on my needlepoint, so I was very excited when I read about this book. When it arrived I was a little skeptical because, it’s just pages and pages of patterns with no names and no text. After having looked at it, I am now a fan of this approach.

Each pattern is numbered and the diagrams are large. They are big enough to show several repeats of the pattern. That’s great because you really get a feel for how they will look. For one part of the pattern, the stitches are numbered, but arrows showing the direction to use for each stitch are shown on every single stitch in the diagram.

That is the most incredibly helpful thing!

Blackwork as a technique on needlepoint canvas has two stumbling blocks and Snyder addresses them both beautifully in this book.

First many blackwork patterns look like the diagram above, with the stitches on the lines of the grid. Since in needlepoint the convention is to have the stitches begin and end in the holes of the grid, this can be very confusing. In this book all the diagrams are like good needlepoint diagrams; the stitches have curved ends so you see every stitch and they begin and end in holes.

If Blackwork diagrams have defeated you in the past, this will help you understand the technique.

Second, because canvas is so open, it can be hard to figure out a path to take so that threads don’t show on the back. Snyder acknowledges this as a problem with Blackwork on canvas and in her numbering schemes she has worked out paths for most patterns that aren’t double running (used for Blackwork on cloth) but that don’t leave thread trails.

There is a one-page introduction that talks about some ways to use Blackwork as well as some working notes on the diagrams. Then it’s on to the patterns.

The patterns are wonderfully varied and I can think of tons of projects sitting in my stash where they would work.

Many of the patterns are variations of other patterns and this is the source of a small complaint. I’d love to see related patterns next to each other. Occasion ally this happens, but mostly it does not. Having related patterns next to each other would make it easy for me to decide if I wanted to add more stuff to a simple pattern or not.

There are a few patterns in her that are not strictly Blackwork, I saw a laidwork pattern and some textured stitches, but there aren’t many of these.

All in all it’s a simply fantastic book and I’m so glad I have it.

Wealth of Free Cross Stitch Patterns at Cyberstitchers

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

A chart is a chart is a chart — or at least that’s what I red someplace.

And if you’re doing needlepoint that’s true — up to a point.

While you can’t put a quarter stitch from counted cross stitch onto needlepoint canvas, you can stitch directly from any whole stitch cross stitch chart on needlepoint canvas. Backstitches can also be done on needlepoint canvas as long as this isn’t too extensive.

Which brings me to this phenomenal library of charted patterns from Cyberstitchers, the online chapter of EGA. There are over 1000 patterns there, mostly small, many whole stitch.

Best of all, they are free to download in either PCStitch or PDF format.

I’ve spent so much time there looking and downloading. Now I need to find time to stitch.

Thanks to Denise at Craft Gossip for pointing this out.

See more here:
Wealth of Free Cross Stitch Patterns at Cyberstitchers

Inspiring Ideas – Indian Folk Art

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

Originally posted 2009-05-29 05:40:08. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Are you looking for some lovely designs as a jumping off point for your work?

The new blog, Indian Folk Designs, has lovely free drawings of all kinds of Indian art.

They are classified by area and can be used as drawings to trace of as inspiration.

While many of them are too detailed to be used for needlepoint as is, they could be a great starting point.

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