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Cheryl Fall, the Needlepoint Guide at About.com, has a fantastic year-long learning project happening. She wants you to learn new stitches by creating a stitch journal.

Learn how to make your journal, then print the pages for individual stitches. By making your stitch samples, you’ll also use up a bunch of thread from your stash.

If you’re new to needlepoint, this will increase the stitches you know. If you’ve been stitching a long time, you’ll find new stitches.

This is such a great idea!

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Use 2010 to Learn New Stitches for Needlepoint

Twinchies for 2010

attic window needlepoint twinchy, designed by janet perry

I have just spent some much overdue time looking at the Twinchies I have done and uploading them into a Facebook album.

This year, as much as I can, I will be using the Twinchy format to try out new needlepoint techniques as part of the 2010 President’s Challenge. We will be trying a new technique each month including Hilton Stitches (this month, hardanger on canvas, bargello, and surface embroidery on canvas. It’s free and open to all members of CyberPointers.

But looking at them all got me excited again about these little bits of needlepoint. so I’m going to start doing more of them. In the spirit of trying something new, I’d like the Twichy theme for January to be monochromatic color schemes. To make it even easier, I also want you to use the Attic Windows Twinchy pattern shown above.

That’s it, use any stitches you like, any threads, but in a monochromaticscheme in this pattern.

I’ll make a gallery of pictures people send me and show you my results in early February.

Tomorrow look for a post about this color scheme.

Two New Series for 2010 at About.com The days after Christmas are often doldrums for needlepointers. You’ve…
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Twinchies for 2010

Just a Few More New Things

Melissa Shirley is now painting several of her animals on 13 mesh, which is wonderful for those of us with older eyes.

Colonial Needle has brought back the Lee business case. They have also have come out with a new case to hold your iPod and headphones in lots of colors.

Rebecca Wood has a series of canvases with “Twas the Night before Christmas as the theme. That’s such a clever idea for a series.

Sew Much Fun has a new line of 3-D animals with stitch guides.

More New Needlepoint Products in Canvas, Charts & Kits There’s always so much great needlepoint coming out at the…
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Just a Few More New Things

Black Metallic Canvas – Product Review

orange sapphire heart stitches for needlepoint sampler on black metallic canvas, designed by Janet Perry

I must admit, I’ve had this canvas in my stash waiting for the right project for awhile. This orange heart, from the upcoming sapphires ebook, was just perfect.

On the up side, the results are stunning. The opal metallic in the canvas is much more apparent on the black and really sets of the design. While the white/opal combination makes for a subtle background, this is dramatic.

On the down side, I thought this was harder to stitch than plain black canvas. The metallic threads made it more difficult to see the holes. I mostly had to work in bright light. I also found that the black showed through with lighter-colored threads, such as in the middle block of the second from bottom row, but not with thicker threads, such as the velours.

One other thing to remember, the metallic threads are only in the weft (horizontal) threads. While this is true of all metallic canvas, it’s especially apparent with the black. Careful planning of your project is needed to take advantage of this. In this case I wanted the metallic threads to be vertical, so the canvas was turned 90 degrees.

All in all, I think the look outweighs the difficulties and I will be using it again.

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Black Metallic Canvas – Product Review

New Needlepoint Products in Canvas, Charts & Kits

kelly clark february santa, stitch guide by janet perry

kelly clark march santa, stitch guide by janet perry

Above are two Santa’s from Kelly Clark’s new monthly Santa series. I’ve done the stitch guides for them both. There are lots of easy, fun effects on them. I’m just crazy about the fiddler for March, I had so much fun stitching him.

Stitch & Zip (from Alice Peterson Co.) has announced a new size of Stitch & Zip cases for Kindles (and possibly other ebook readers). This such a great idea. Not only does it show off your needlepoint, it will protect the screen. If you are crafty, but not just in needlepoint, think about AMH’s DIY Journal Kit. It has a place for a needlepoint initial already in the cover and is blank, so you can create your own design.

Several of Fleur de Paris’ designers, have lovely new pieces. There is Epicerie, a charming FRench storefront from Sandra Gilmore of Once in a Blue Moon. Trubey Designs has a Hot Air Balloon Cushion for a child’s rocking chair. Finally, dede’s Needleworks has a delightful Polar Santa stocking.

All about Stitching has some delightful small designs for Halloween and Easter. Finish them on sticks and put them in a pail for a great decoration. They also have a charming Noah’s Ark footstool for a child’s room. Whimsy and grace has several lovely brick covers and a fantastic pansy clutch purse.

Jenny Henry specializes in geometric designs. You’ll love her series of ornament-sized round frame, perfect for a snapshot or school picture. Julie Mar ahs introduced a new line, Transitions, which marries traditional floral designs with some modern elements. Irises is just one of the canvases.

Julie Pishke has a fantastic shell-filled Beach Rug with a lovely striped border. Zecca has a very cool geometric backgammon board in green and violet.

More new stuff in tomorrow’s post.

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New Needlepoint Products in Canvas, Charts & Kits

Update on Joce’s Progress

Joce has made wonderful progress on her geometric project and has done two more posts. The Big V adds the large diamond surrounding the center. From a Diamond to Some Squares adds detail to the diamond and begins the corner squares.

Inspired by a comment from Joce, Barbara at Create Needlepoint is starting a project called Needlepoint Stitch Tangle. It’s based on a kind of doodle called a Zentangle. A second post lists all the stitches she will be using and show the painted design.

I really love it and am thinking (hard) about doing one or more of my own. I think I’m going to ask people in my family to make the doodle and then stitch one for each of them as an ornament.

My DD also asked me about doing a set of three ornaments for a friend’s daughter and her new-born twins. This might be perfect.

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Update on Joce’s Progress

Stitching Mouldings

Perhaps instead of stitching the exteriors of colonial homes, you are more interested in stitching interiors. One characteristic of Georgian (English) and Colonial (American) homes is their extensive use of wooden mouldings on walls.

Mouldings (yes, this is the proper spelling) are carved pieces of wood placed on the walls to add detail. They can be as simple as a chair rail, used to keep chair backs from scraping the paint, to a complex wooden wainscot, the bottom portion of the wall).

Other types of moulding include baseboards, the wooden moulding at the bottom of walls, crown moudling, at the top of walls, and picture rails, about a foot down from the ceiling. Mouldings can include applied decorations and rails on fireplaces, decorations in the corners of stair walls and the frames around windows and doors.

While most modern houses don’t have much in the way of mouldings, there are plenty of places where you can buy them ad add them to your home.

You may be asking what this has to do with needlepoint. Anne Stradal is doing a new series of needlepoint, this time of clocks. Her first entry is a fine case clock, what we’d think of as a Granfather clock. Behind it she has a lovely wall and has written a great blog post about stitching mouldings. It’s a great place to start a stitchy exploration of them.

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Threading the Needle

A reader recently asked me: “Are there tips to threading the needle? The thread keeps fraying!”

I’ll start with the obvious — are you threading the needle properly?
You bring the thread to the needle, not the needle to the thread. That’s the most important thing.

Second, are you compressing the end of the thread to make it more pointy? You can do this by squeezing or twisting it slightly. That often helps.

The next best thing to do is use a needle threader, I find this takes care of the problem most of the time. Use one for needlework threads, the ones for sewing threads or beading are too flimsy. Several companies make them.

Some people find using a needle one size bigger makes the needle easier to thread. Since I use bigger needles anyway, I don’t do this.

These tips work for any thread, but some threads fray more than others. Flair should always be cut at an extreme diagonal. This doesn’t end unravelling, but minimizes it.

With other threads I have been told using a drop of FrayChek or clear nail polish works. Always let it dry before threading the needle. Since I never have either of these nearby I haven’t tried them.

Do you have any other threading tips?