technique

hand-dyed yarn using kool-aide for needlepoint, yarn from leethal.net

Toxic chemicals, separate vessels, many precautions, like many people I look for alternatives to chemical dyes. Ideally they would be easy to do, safe around children and pets, and wouldn’t absolutely require me to use different tools and pots (because I don’t know where to put them).

Inventive knitter and dyer Lee Meredith comes rushing to my rescue. You’ve read about Lee before. I’ve profiled her, tried her hand-dyed yarns recycled from sweaters, and adapted her game knitting ideas to needlepoint. Today I want to talk about her wonderful tutorials on dyeing.

Lee’s first two tutorials about Kool-aid dyeing have been updated. The first part discusses her basic method and how to get a variegated yarn with Kool-aid. This part also has some great links to other sites about Kool-aid dyeing, including one to a color chart. The second part covers making self-striped yarns. These yarns are wrapped and then painted with dyes in irregular stripes. In knitting they make striped patterns which give the yarns their name. Many multi-color needlepoint yarns are made this way as well.

Earlier this week she refined her methods showing us how to use a Crock-pot and several kinds of Kool-aid to get a wonderful spotty hand-dyed yarn.

There are several things I love about this method, which Lee does incredibly well. First off it’s non-toxic, so you can do it in your kitchen with no problems. Second, it’s incredibly cheap. Kool-aid is often 10 cents at the grocery store, crockpots are always available at thrift shops, and animal fiber yarns (i.e.wool) can be easy to find or are already in your stash. Third, with experimentation you can get colors and effects that will be unique and not found in commercial thread.

One note for success in dyeing (Lee also notes this). There are three types of fibers: animal (silk and wool of various kinds(, vegetable (cotton and linen) and man-made. Each type of fiber needs to be dyed with different dyes and reacts with color differently. Kool-aid works with animal fibers. I’ve tried it with cotton and the results are much lighter and less stable.

Dyeing my own threads is something I have dabbled with since I was a teenager. My first needlepoint stitch sampler, done in 1977, used all hand-dyed yarns. I have taken classes, tried many techniques and still find the process fascinating. I’m off to find a crock pot (it’s 50% off day at one local thrift store) and I’m pulling some of my lighter wools and silk wools from my stash for dyeing.

The rest is here:
Non-toxic Dyeing of Wool and Silk Yarns

Scrapbooking – Soccer Layout Ideas

by Craft Articles

in Scrapbooking

This technique works best with at least 4 pages of layouts. Begin by creating the title across the first and last page of the layout. You can then cut the in between pages at the top of each page so that the title from the first page and the title on the last page are still visible.

Read more here:
Scrapbooking – Soccer Layout Ideas

Waste Canvas

bunny being stitched on t shirt showing waste canvas and hoop

bunny in progress showing waste canvas and hoop

If you’re mainly a needlepointer, you may never have used waste canvas. This canvas opens up a whole new world of places to put needlepoint.

The idea behind waste canvas is simple. You baste it onto a non-countable ground, do your stitching, wet the canvas, and then pull out the threads. The result is needlepoint or counted cross stitch on fabric.

When my kids were little I used waste canvas to embellish lots of clothes. The bunny pictured above is one I did. They remain some of my favorite pieces of needlepoint. So easy to do and such a great effect.

bunny stitched on T short using waste canvas

finished bunny

Waste canvas is readily available at chain craft stores. Combine it with floss from the same store, clothing you have on hand, and a freebie design and you have a unique piece often in an hour or two.

I also love the wonderful therapy of pulling out the threads of the canvas; it’s great for getting out frustrations.

If you’ve never used waste canvas before, it’s wonderful to see the whole process. The blog, On Awesome Avenue has posted a tutorial on how to use waste canvas. A big thanks to Denise at Craft Gossip for pointing this out.

Original post:
Waste Canvas

Stitch Direction & Needlepoint – Part 2

Tied Oblong Cross Stitch is an oblique stitch.

While straight and diagonal stitches cover most needlepoint stitches, there are three other stitch and pattern directions that are quite powerful because they don’t have a strong direction. I often turn to these types of stitches when I need something that is unusual but doesn’t have strong lines. In fact, most of my go to stitches fall into these categories.

This version of Bath has an oblique horizontal direction.

diagonal victorian step stitch for needlepoint

Diagon Victorian Step is made of diagonal stitches, but has an oblique pattern direction.

diagonal cashmere stitch for needlepoint

Diagonal Cashmere has an oblique pattern direction because of its rectangular shape.

Oblique Stitches are those stitches with a slant off the true diagonal. Many of them, like Oblong Cross, top of article, are rectangular. Some patterns can also create oblique lines. Some of my favorite of these are pictured above. Bath, top, is an offset version of Milanese. Victorian Step, middle, creates oblique lines of longer stitches. Diagonal Cashmere, bottom, is oblique because of the rectangular Cashmere units.

Use Oblique Stitches when you want to create a difference in horizontal and vertical lines, but not have it too obvious. Combining vertical and horizontal versions of oblique stitch patterns reinforces the direction of both without making the change too abrupt.

encroached gobelin stitch for needlepoint

Encroached Gobelin creates a textured stitch with no direction.

Encroached Stitches are those where the stitches in one row intrude upon, or encroach, stitches in another row. The most familiar of these is Encroached Gobelin, above, where one row of stitches starts before the other row of stitches ends. But stitch patterns can also encroach. These patterns do not have strong lines in themselves and have stitches which but up against other stitches, making the lines mesh together. Triple Diagonal Parisian, below, is one such stitch.

Triple Diagonal Parisian Stitch for needlepoint

Triple Diagonal Parisian is a textured stitch with no direction.

Encroached Stitches are a great choice when you want no stitch direction but want more texture than Tent Stitch.

Double Linen is a straight stitch with a criss-cross direction.

Criss-cross Stitches are those stitches where each individual unit changes direction and overlaps other units. While there are straight stitches with this pattern like Double Linen, above, most of the time “criss-cross” is used for diagonal stitches.

Criss-cross Stitches form highly textured but non-directional patterns. Often they have a woven appearance. They are nice to use when an object is round, a ring (broken or unbroken) or when two sections need to reflect each other. I’m currently using Sertendipity, below, for the horseshoe on my Charley Harper canvas, where the shape defeated all my other ideas.

Setrendipity is a small criss-cross stitch which works for many areas.

If you can’t figure out what kind of stitch direction you need in an area, try a criss-cross stitch, they often work perfectly.

My apologies for the lateness of the post, I got home late last night and had errands this morning.

Read the rest here:
Stitch Direction & Needlepoint – Part 2

Symmetry and the Needlepoint Line Problem

needlepoint charley harper four-leaf clover

There is a problem (opportunity if you’re a glass half full person) lurking in the heart of every piece of needlepoint. It catches new stitchers and old, it can make a modern edgy piece look “needlepointy” and dull. And it cannot be avoided.

Tent Stitches, the basic needlepoint stitch, are asymetrical. They have a direction, like little arrows. If you have done cross stitch in the past, it doesn’t have this problem (cross stitches are squares). The as=symmetry of needlepoint sneaks up and surprises many stitchers. You can’t get a curve to look even, a line that slants the wrong way becomes a dotted line.

Older needlepoint that was done entirely in Tent Stitch didn’t worry about this problem, so modern needlepoint that has the problem tends to look dated; today we go for a more realistic line and more elaborate stitches.

This problem drives me mad, because I like symmetry in my needlepoint.And I’ve found several ways to solve it, two of which you can see in the four-leaf clover above. The first method, seen on the leaves, is to change the slant of the stitch. If the slant of the line matches the slant of the stitch, the line will be solid. If they are opposite, the line will look dotted. I changed the slant at each of the black lines, making the white line of the clover solid all around. The black line meant that the two slants didn’t meet, but I have done that as well; your eye tends not to see the change if you either use a soft thread or make the center stitch a cross stitch, or both.

I further reinforced the symmetry of the white lines by having all the other stitches above and below it slant the same way. This made the whole clover nicely reflective.

The other method is to use Whipped Stitches to make curved lines. Whipping is the process of wrapping an existing line of stitches with the same or another thread. Begin by making the line. To do thin whipped lines, use Backstitch. Two adjacent lines of backstitch make a slightly thicker line and chain stitch, used here, makes a bold line.

Wrap the stitch by beginning at one end of the line, going over the first stitch and under the second, repeating this over-under process until the line ids wrapped. Magically the line curves and looks smooth.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about textured stitches and stitch direction.

See the original post here:
Symmetry and the Needlepoint Line Problem

Shading in Needlepoint & Why to Do It

leaf kimono hand painted canvas needlepoint from lee needle arts

unstitched canvas

The multi-colored leaves in this mini kimono from Lee Needle Arts are just perfect to show needle-blending and the wonderful effect it has on needlepoint. On the unstitched canvas pictured here, there are four different colorings of leaves. The orange leaves are solid. The green leaves have an obvious line between the two shades. The orange leaf has a less obvious distinction between the shades, and the remaining leaves blend the two colors. In this one little piece you will see two types of shading in contrast with non-shaded leaves.

needlepoint leaf in offset mosaic stitch

The solid orange and two-tone green leaves are stitched with no blending. I picked a textured stitch for the orange leaf and it looks great. But notice the green leaves. by stitching in only two colors, a hard line if created. There is no transition. This can look OK if the two colors are close in value, but it always makes the item look less realistic. Adding something like Whipped Backstitch as a vein, visually divides the space and makes it look better.

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needlepoint leaf with shading between the colors

The two-shade orange leaf uses a blended needle of two strands of each shade of orange to create a transition zone. Although there isn’t much room for shading, see how much more realistic this leaf appears.

needlepoint leaf with shading between two different colors

The three-shade leaves are the most challenging. Not only is there shading between the two oranges, there is shading between the dark orange and green. Often on canvases, such as this one, that need this kind of shading, the shading is painted on canvas.

The green-orange shading uses a blended needle with two strands of each color. The shaded area is always irregular on both sides. There should be no more than three stitches in a row. This keep the eye from seeing a pattern. Bumps, with a stitch or two sticking up, or holes, with a stitch or two missing can both be used to make the edge irregular. The line should not be the same on both sides. This is important because it keeps the eye from seeing this as a definite area, so your brain uses it visually to blend the two colors.

This canvas is small and so are the areas to blend. But the size of the blending should always match the size of the adjacent solid areas. Larger areas will need to have larger blended areas

Shading is a great tool to have in your needlepoint bag of tricks. It allows you to make subtle and realistic transitions. With it you can create colors not found in threads. You can also use it to create subtle effects on canvas. As you can see, it’s simple to do and makes your needlepoint look so good.

Straight Stitches

Originally posted 2007-10-13 08:35:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

I know lots of needlepointers and I’d say that Straight Stitches tend to be more of a problem for then than any other stitches.

They shouldn’t be. They offer some tremendous possibilities in needlepoint and there are easy ways to overcome most dificulties.

For myself, I love Straight Stitches, and use them often. In writing stitch guides it can be a real challenge to me not to use any Straight Sttitches.

So why are they so great?

First, Straight Stitches allow you to get straight diagonal lines. With a diagonal stitch you get an irregular edge, because stitches will go into two different diagonal rows of holes. With Straight Stitches you go up a single diagonal row of holes getting a clean edge.

Second, Straight Stitches allow you to get rounded shapes easily. Take a simple Straight Stitch, like Hungarian, and double each of the stitches. Suddenly what was a diamond becomes a little oval. This is true of many Straight Stitches and makes them outstanding choices for rounded areas.

Third, Straight Stitches make lovely diamonds. Try making a diamond with diagonal stitches. You can make squares and right triangles easily, but you can’t make a diamond. But it’s easy with a Straight Stitch. Likewise it makes great octogons and triangles (look at Trianglepoint).

If it’s so useful, why aren’t Straight Stitches ore popular?

Many people find their coverage is not as good with Straight Stitches. Because a Straight Stitch goes over threads, not over intersections, it requires a thicker thread to get good coverage. I use six strands when I use four in a diagonal stitch. Or I pick a thread like Silk & Ivory with lots of loft in it.

Even so if the canvas is white specks might still show through. Color your canvas a lighter shade of the thread color BEFORE you begin to stitch.

The places where Straight and Diagonal Stitches meet isn’t smooth. This is going to be a judgement call always. The two kinds of stitches will rarely share a hole. But you can butt Straight Stitches right up against the Diagonal Stitches to prevent any canvas showing. You can also tuck the Diagonal Stitches into holes underneath a Straight Stitch to get a pretty edge.

If the Straight Stitch goes over only a single intersection you can lose it under the canvas thread. This happens when two things occur. First, the stitch needs to be in the same direction as the canvas thread on top. This allows the stitch to fall under the floating top thread of the canvas. Second, the stitch on the back needs to be another Straight Stitch. The back doesn’t give enough support to keep the stitch on top from disappearing. Often stitchers are told just to make another stitch, but this doesn’t always work. I have found much better restults if I am careful about the backs of my stitches, so that there is always a diagonal stitch on the back.

For example, if I’m making a horizontal rows of stitches, I begin every stitch at the bottom and go to the top.

Try to avoid Straight Stitches over a single thread, but sometimes it can’t be helped. If you look for ways to get longer diagonal stitches on the back, you’re problems will be minimized.

The one thing I haven’t found a way to get around is the problem that when the outside edge of a canvas piece has both Straight and Diagonal Stitches, it is uneven. It has to be, it always will be. This is a big problem for framing and finishing. My suggestion for you is to add a border around the entires piece of one kind of stitch.

The Challenge of Limited Colors

When we think about challenges in needlepoint, we don’t often think that a limited set of colors is a problem. At least it’s not high on my list. Way too much background? That’s there. Odd shapes where there will be lots of compensation? That’s there. Too many tiny little spaces where the temptation to use Tent Stitch is great? That’s there too.

One difference between modern needlepoint and the needlepoint of the 70’s is that today we expect to have variety in our pieces. This comes from different stitches, threads and colors. Our needlepoint doesn’t look flat. Restricted color palettes, especially if there isn’t lots of room for textured stitches can look flat and dull.

There is an easy way to fix this. Use threads with more than one texture in those colors. For example, if your borders are in stranded silk, a relatively matte thread, use perle cotton and rayons for the focal point.

The different textures will add life to the stitching.

Go here to see the original:
The Challenge of Limited Colors

Adding a Name to a Ready-Made Needlepoint Stocking

The second part of the house will run tomorrow, my apologies.

Last weekend a reader asked: “I have store-bought needlepoint Christmas stocking. I want to needlepoint (or use some other method) to put a child’s name on the stocking. Can I needlepoint over what is already there? ”

Yes, you can and here are some ideas.

You can stitch over the needlepoint stitches on the stocking with other needlepoint stitching, which is kind of like embroidering on a sweater (duplicate stitch). To do this you should chart the name and experiment with thickening your thread so that you will be happy with the coverage. I also think it would work better if the area was light and not dark.

Another possibility I’ve used, but not on names, is to do blackwork over needlepoint. Which lets you use thinner threads and have more delicate patterns. I’d did this with an overall pattern. To do it for as name, you have two choices. You could wrap the Backstitches, making Whipped Backstitch, which would stand away from the canvas. If you used fairly thick threads and an elaborate alphabet, this could look cool.

You could also make open letters and fill them with Blackwork patterns, although I think there might not be enough space for this on a stocking.

A final possibility would be to use DMC’s new memory thread and shape the letters from that. I haven’t tried this thread yet, but I’ve heard great things about it.

You might also think about making a separate tag with your child’s name on it. It hangs from the same side as the loop and then you can do any stitch you wanted. If I did that I’d add some small bells hanging from a ribbon and some tassels made with the colors in the stocking to make it look as if it was all planned.

This is such a great idea for making a stocking special!