stash

I had a realization yesterday — I’m going to have to stick up on long stretcher bars. Thinking about the projects I have planned and the models for classes I need to stitch, I’ve got lots of big things to work on.

They fall into three main categories, so here’s what’s on the plate:

Models for Classes

I have on stretcher bars a charming alphabet from Art Needlepoint that will be a different sort of class, more like a teacher-led group project. They’ll be lots of interesting techniques and unconventional uses of materials here.

I am also actually stitching on the model for another class, soon to be announced.

Then I have two big canvases for models that I haven’t even gotten on bars yet.

UFO’s

I always ay to myself I’m going to finish a ton of UFO’s and never do. But this year I am serious about finishing two large Maggie geometrics that have been in progress.

One is so softened that I have had to put it on stretcher bars just to get it finished. Even then it’s pulling away in areas, so I’m going to need to redo it.

Year-long Projects

I counted them yesterday. I am going to do the ANG SOTM for 2012. I haven’t picked colors for this yet because I’m going to do it as a stash project and need to put away threads to see what colors to use.

Then I’m taking part in Shining Needle’s Society Kimono with John Wadell. These are both big.

The later in the year I’m doing two projects with CyberPointers: PLum BLossom Kimono and Liz Morrow’s Bargello piece.

None of these is small, in fact for someone addicted to projects that fit on stretcher bars smaller than 10″, this is a HUGE departure.

But I’m hoping by the end of the year to have conquered my fear of charted needlepoint, made two more lovely pillows for my studio, and increased my knowledge of color and stitches.

Plus use up even more of my stash.

What are your stitchy resolutions?

See the rest here:
My Stitchy Resolutions

Needlepoint Quilt Block Gift Tags – New Free Pattern

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

needlepoint twinchie patchwork quilt block gift tags, free needlepoint project by needlepoint expert janet m. perry

Get these free gift tag patterns at My 365 magazine's site.

These four almost Twinchie (34 stitches square) quilt blocks are really quick to stitch and can be finished quickly to make simple ornaments or gift tags.

They are stitched in colors to compliment the overdyed canvas colors, but any scrap of mono canvas will do.

I just love the bright bold look.

The patterns for the quartet are free and can be found in My 365‘s holiday issue, out today. The beautiful magazine is on-line and free.

As a part of the issue, I’m participating in a giveaway of my books. Visit the site to learn how to enter.

BTW to turn any of these into a true Twinchie, just add a one row “binding” in Continental as a border.

Link:
Needlepoint Quilt Block Gift Tags – New Free Pattern

Organizing the “Junk” Drawer

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

All this month while cleaning and organizing I have been avoiding something. You probably avoid it too whenever you clean up.

Be honest now. You do.

The Junk Drawer.

Mine is in my desk and has in it, among other things, random twists of threads that don’t have a place, cards of beading needles, templates from LNA luggage tags, magnets that don’t hold needles very well, jewelry, and who knows what else.

It needs cleaned out. It needs organized. Because of the cats (this also applies to small children) I have to do it all at once.

Here’s how.

Take everything out.
AS you do examine stuff.Decide about each item if:
- It’s a storage container. If so put it aside, you’ll use it to put stuff into back in the drawer.
- It belongs somewhere else in the house. Put these in piles by room or floor and put into bags and take them there.
- It’s trash. Throw it out right away without delay.
- It should be given away. Make a pile of these, inventory them when you are done for tax purposes, bag them and get them out of there.
- They belong in your junk drawer. This pile should now be fairly small.
Take your junk drawer pile and sort it with like items together. Put scissors with scissors for instance.
Look at your storage containers and see what of your pile will fit in them. Also decide what in that pile should go someplace else. For example, I keep my small project scissors in a pot on my desk so I can grab a pair quickly. My markers are all in a big box in another drawer except for a few in my pencil jar on my desk.
Put your stuff into the containers you have and put them back into the drawer.

Depending on how bad your drawer is, this might take an hour or two.

But when you are done, you are organized and can find that elusive tool you KNOW was there.

Read this article:
Organizing the “Junk” Drawer

Come Stitch with Me – Winter Stars Part 1

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

Originally posted 2009-01-20 06:07:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Winter Stars Needlepoint Pattern Free for stash needlepoint

A sparkly sky in icy blues. white, and pale grays is the inspiration for this Scrap Bag Needlepoint piece based on a quilt design.

You can make the quilt in any monochromatic color you like. To do so, first pick out your background color. In my case this was white, pale gray, and pale blue. Pull out all your threads in this color. Then pull out all your threads in the main color of the quilt. In my case this was blue to blue-violet. There will be a few blue-green patches, but not many.

For each block of the quilt you will use two shades of blue and one accent color. As you can see by the sample, you can have the darker shade either as the center or as the points. The only trick is to keep the look varied by not having the same thread in two blocks next to each other.

I try to keep the same thread from appearing in the same row, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, but then I have lots of thread for these.

The layout will have 5 rows of five blocks. It is stitched on a 14″ square piece of 18 mesh mono canvas. I chose a dark blue for the canvas, as I wanted to have an underlying blue theme. You can pick any color.

The block is made up of a Scotch variation called Islay. Some are a single color, while some are split between two colors.

Scotch Stitches over more than five threads have a tendency to catch and snag. One way to fix this is to split up the stitches. You lose the smooth box look, but for something which is based on a quilt, you get little divisions, which look like the ties in an old-fashioned quilt.

As the design builds, this creates a nice rhythm.

The block has nine Islay and Reverse Islay Stitches in it. The corner blocks can be either of the two stitches. The diagram shows one possibility, the picture at the top of the post shows another.

Begin by finding the center of the canvas. This should be the center of one block.

Always complete a block before moving onto the next block.

As I add blocks I find them easiest to stitch by making a corner block which is next to an already stitched block. Then I stitch the triangle points, then the center blocks, then I finish up the background.

When you are fitting in triangles or making the second triangle on a side, begin with the outside stitches and work towards the corner, this makes the triangles easier to stitch.

Come back next month for the first borders and to see the center section completed.

Follow this link:
Come Stitch with Me – Winter Stars Part 1

More Stash-busting projects with Cones

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

Remember those great yarn cone angels I blogged about recently?

Pam has come back with even more creative uses from yarn (i.e. our stashes) and cones. While she uses cardboard yarn cones from Yarnia, you can also use the more widely available styrofoam cones from your local craft shop.

In her post you’ll see step-by-step how to make the snowman and Santa pictured above.

But I really like the trees. I can easily imagine making several in different sizes in different colors of green and then decorating them with goodies you pick up at thrift shops and garage sales.

This would be easy enough to do that you could get your kids inolved.

Visit link:
More Stash-busting projects with Cones

Unstitched Canvases – Organizing the Stash

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

An on-going problem for is how to store all those canvases I have but haven’t stitched. I tend to pounce on the canvases I like best when I see them (usually because they aren’t made anymore) and so finding a place for them is always a problem.

When you are looking for storage for canvases it’s important to remember that they need to be stored either rolled or flat. Do not fold canvas.

I think it’s also important to store them so it’s easy to look through them.

Finally if you tend to overbuy canvases, find some kind of storage method that controls the size of your stash.

My current method for small canvases, a smallish tote bag is great for controlling stash and keeping canvases flat but it’s hard to look through. Larger canvases are kept in a dresser drawer, also hard to go through.

In our old house I had a system that worked beautifully. I used a set of wire baskets in a frame that slid in and out. These were from one of those closet organizing companies. They were perfect. Small canvases went into the shallow bins, sorted by type. Large canvases went into deeper bins, rolled.

With the many organizing systems and the lovely flat baskets I often see you should be able to find something of this type that fits your budget.

Another possibility, if your closet space allows it is to store canvases on skirt hangers. This works well for larger canvases but you’ll still need another method for small ones.

If You’ve found another method, I’d love to hear about it.

These methods work for canvases with no threads. Tomorrow I’ll talk about storing WIPs (Works in Progress), UFOs (UnFinished Objects) and canvases with threads.

Visit link:
Unstitched Canvases – Organizing the Stash

Substitutions in the Abstract Needlepoint

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

Originally posted 2009-07-14 06:50:22. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

abstract cross stitch done as needlepoint, showing color substitutions

If you want to make a Scrap Bag Needlepoint from your stash and want it to have a coordinated look, there’s nothing better than pulling out all your threads in a particular color scheme.

That’s what I chose to do for my version of the delightful abstract cross stitch you first saw awhile ago. I’m making it to go into my powder room and using a blue-violet and violet color scheme. There are also some accents based on Caron Collections Amethyst (pink and olive) and on the gray and brown undertones of the violet colors.

But just randomly picking colors doesn’t always work, especially if you have a design such as this one which is busy and doesn’t have any background. If I picked all my threads in these color and just chose randomly, I’d end up with a mess.

But there is a clever and easy way to adapt ANY design to a different color scheme and that’s by using a one-to-one substitution. Begin by looking at the pattern and writing down the colors in color families. For some patterns the value of the colors is important, for others, such as this one, it isn’t.

Now think about textures. Are there any colors in the design which stand out sharply, either because they are painted a different texture or they are a different color? Pick threads for those first. In looking at this pattern it seemed to me that the bright yellow stood out as if it should be gold.

I picked a multi-colored metallic to use for all the blocks in that color.

Next I looked at color families and picked similar threads or colors for those. The pinks and reds use three shades of blue-violet. The two golds used two shades of muted violet to almosty brown. I had problems when I got to the final two families of violets and greens, largely because I needed to get more variety into the piece.

The two violets use an two overdyes I had which has lots of warm colors in it and the lavender the lightest of the accent colors. The blue uses the Amethyst overdye because blocks of it occur all over the design and will tie it together, giving it a color scheme. These choices added color and accents throughout the design, but I still worried it wasn’t enough.

The three greens were left to pick. I decided that I’d try to pick threads to be accents for them and not worry about them being the same color. The lightest green is a pink metallic, since the original metallic wasn’t as attention-getting stitched as it is in the spool. The darkest green is a dark violet velour, a different texture. That left the middle green and I didn’t like any of the accent colors I had left. So I picked a light blue-violet similar to the color I used for the pink but ion a different fiber. Since this is near the wall color of the room, It will work.

I wrote down my substitutions and proceeded to test them. Starting in one corner, I stitched blocks of each color in the substituted. Thread. I’m not very far along, which is OK, because I can see that the colors work nicely together to make a harmonious whole.

Tomorrow we’ll cover stitch choice for the project.

Continued here:
Substitutions in the Abstract Needlepoint

Organizing Threads

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

For many of us, including me, organizing threads is the biggest part of organizing our stash. A critical part of this is figuring out how to make this organization work for you.

Of course that means thinking. You can think about threads in three ways: by thread type,by texture, or by color. If you say to yourself “Pebbly Perle would be perfect here!” you should classify by thread type. If you say “I need a furry thread for that little cat!” you should classify by texture. If you say “That dress should be ruby red!” you should classify by color.

Whichever you choose, now think about the places you have to store things. In many cases this will determine how much you can break out the categories.

Someone with a small stash and not much space might classify the stash by big color groupings: re, orange, yellow, etc. But with lots of storage, a stash classified by thread type might have five different drawers for Kreinik metallics (I do).

Once you know these things take out all or part of your thread stash, emptying drawers and anyplace else thread hides.

Divide what you have pulled out into the categories you decided to use.

Next either do some more classifying or put what you have away where it will live.

But how do you know when it’s time to split on of your categories? I use two criteria. If I get a new bit of storage, I think about bins that are pretty full and split something (I recently did this with several IKEA bins). If a bin gets too full, I see where there is space I can free up and split that bin (I need to do that now with my Rainbow Gallery metallics).

I don’t like to put away threads often, even though they are organized well, so I keep a small tote by my desk. Threads I’ve used go there and then get put away when the bag is full. I use the same dump and sort procedure.

See more here:
Organizing Threads

Planning – the First Step in Organizing

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

Although you don’t need to plan before you organize your stash, you’ll be happier if you spend some quality time thinking before sorting and storing.

First, think about what you have to store. Is it UFO’s, canvases, threads, books, or just about everything. Write down the board categories and not if you already have storage for them.

For example thread is the main thing I need to store, which is fine, But much of my thread lives in a seed cabinet and two chunks of card catalogue, which may not be so fine. They take up a ton of space and any organizing I need to do has to take that into account.

Second, think about the space you have. Is it big or small? Does it share space with other things? Does it have furniture in it? What lighting does it have? Is there hidden storage space anywhere?

Finally, think about how often you use the things in your stash. Do you start projects often? Are you mainly working on your UFOs? Do you need to get to blank canvas often? Do you mostly work on small projects so long stretcher bars can live far away?

Now that you know what you have, how you use it and what space you have for it, you can start thinking about how you will use your space. Do you sit in a particular space? What needs to be near it to make stitching easier? Do you do your work at a desk? What needs to be close by? Do you have a door you can close?

Once you have thought, write down what you have discovered and write down what you like and hate about your space.

When I set up my studio I knew it would need to be a guest room, so I bought a daybed, but not the one I wanted that had storage. But I found that I hated pulling out the bins.

Re arranging our house last winter allowed me to move that daybed to another room and to get a daybed with storage. The drawers make me more organized and I am MUCH happier.

A final word of advice. You won’t get it right the first time, but with each reorganization, you’ll get closer to a space that functions for you. By planning you’ll know what is good, what needs to be changed and where there is untapped potential.

Follow this link:
Planning – the First Step in Organizing

Organizing Month

by NutsAboutNeedlepoint

in Nuts About Needlepoint

Last week I spent several days doing a major clean-up of my studio. I had been sadly neglecting it. First there was the sick cat being in a cage (August) in here (August). Then there was the stuff from ANG and the new slide out shelf units that belong SOMEWHERE ELSE (September). And the various purchases and threads that couldn’t get put away because of all the other stuff.

So I thought about what needed to be in here and how I could work better in this space. So this month I’m going to devote the middle of the week columns to organization of your stitching space.

I’ll talk about analyzing your needs, planning your space, clean up and organizing your stash. I’ll show you pictures of what I’ve done and link to some great tools and sites.

Today we’ll start with the great clean-up. Cleaning up and throwing out is going to be a big part of any reorganization project. Often the psychological lift you get out of throwing out stuff is enough to encourage you to continue the process.

I keep two trash cans in my office. One is for recycling stuff and the other is for trash. So, before I start to reorganize I get a paper bag for recycling and empty that trash can and a garbage bag for regular trash.

I empty both cans. If either bag is full it goes out of the studio and to the trash. If not, I put it aside for the next bit of stuff for it.

Now, with empty cans I start looking for obvious trash and put it in the cans. If there are magazines that have dog-eared pages, I pull out those pages and recycle the magazines.

When I clear off my desk or clear out something, I check everything to see if it’s trash. If it is — out it goes. Immediately. Once a trash can gets full I bag it so I have an easy place for more trash.

Another tip that helps me get through this is to move stuff that doesn’t belong in your stitching space to another place. Right now I have five piles going: upstairs (clothing etc), books for other parts of the house, garage (I’ll move them at once and organize immediately), thrift shop, and out of the house (packages to mail and ink cartridges to recycle).

Whenever I find something that needs to go in one of these piles it goes there. Right away.

This always clears lots of space.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about planning your space.

Continued here:
Organizing Month

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