finished pieces

I promised I would post the two pieces I just finished stitching for A Collection of Designs so here they are:

They were fun to do and worked up really quickly, I started one night about 6 and finished the next night about 11. Don't worry, I didn't sit there the whole time stitching on these. Janet wanted the same colors used in both these pieces since they are a set. The circles on the candy cane were a challenge especially the gold ones. I used Kreinik 002v which is very stiff and had a hard time making the outline stitch lay very well. You can see that the green circles which were also Kreinik look better because it was a softer twist. Actually, the red Flair was my favorite for the circles because it did exactly what I wanted it to and looked good. I know some people don't like Flair but it's one of my favorite threads, it spreads out and covers the canvas for straight stitches but you can pull it tighter and it gets smaller for other stitches. I don't do any of the melting it that some people do, I cut it on the diagonal and just watch for any little threads to appear when the end starts to ravel and then cut it again. I also use a larger needle to open up the hole so the canvases doesn't tear up the thread as much.

Next project for Janet is to finish the very first one I started for her and then got stuck trying to find all the color of beads it needed. I'll post a picture when I'm done and you'll see what I mean. The first thing I saw when I looked at the canvas was beads for the letters, I got so hung up on it that I couldn't see beyond that even though I have had trouble finding beads. It would help if I could find my entire Sundance line but some how they have disappeared in the move. If the beads don't work, I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

Time to start packing for Seminar. I decided I didn't want to make the two hour commute every day so I'm staying in San Antonio part of the week and then will come home on Wednesday and go back for the rest of seminar.

Cindy

Another hot day

Well it's going to be another hot day in the Hill Country, temperature is suppose to get into the 100s again and no sign of rain.

I spent a big chunk of my day yesterday trying to organize my Kreinik stash. What a mess.

I just finished the stitch guide for the Alamo for the Yarn Barn in San Antonio. The canvas is from Squiggee Designs and will be available through the shop starting with seminar. I took a little liberty with Gail's design and made the columns in the front look more like the actual Alamo. If y'all are coming to seminar or go to the Riverwalk, you can tell people you know someone who has been in the Riverwalk. I did an archeological dig there for 2 years. We found lots of interesting stuff but no sign of the Alamo cannons which was our main goal. The dig was sponsored by NUMA (if you are a Clive Cussler fan, you might not know that this is the real name of the organization he sponsors that does marine archeology). Regretfully, I never got to meet Clive because he always came just after I left.

Speaking of seminar, tomorrow is the big day when we move all the exhibit pieces down to the the hotel. From the few pieces I saw when I was there one day helping check stuff in, it's going to be a fantastic exhibit.

I'm shipping off a bunch of models to A Collection of Designs today and got the background on two done last night so tonight I'll work on the glitz stuff. I'll try to post pictures later this week of some of the pieces.

Time to run errands.

Finally, Baltimore

Aarg!! Someday I'm going to figure out why it takes me forever to get signed on to this blog. It's taken me over an hour just to reach this page. Okay, now that I've vented on to the fun stuff.

I just got back from The National Needlearts Association (TNNA) market in Baltimore. TNNA is the organization for retailers and wholesalers in the needlework industry. I was meeting with Jeremy from Kirk and Hamilton who had flown over from England to attend the show regarding a project we're working on and to talk to Rebecca and Brad Wood from Rebecca Wood Designs. As a side benefit, to fill up on Maryland Crab Soup and Crab Cakes.

I delivered the canvas and stitch guides to Jeremy for the Midnight Sheep Heart and got a new project for the Dallas Market from a new designer they just introduced.

I had a great time even though it poured rain most of the time we were there and I filled up on crab cake. Saw some great new designs from Melissa Prince Designs, I'm in love with her Halloween banner and it was great to see Wooly Dreams back.

Need to go run errands but will try to get back on this afternoon and post some pictures of things I'm working on.

Mystery Needle Arts Retreat and ANG Seminar

I had a long but uneventful plane ride to Columbus, Ohio to attend the Mystery Needle Arts Retreat. If y'all don't know about this stitching experience, it's great fun. There are four teachers who over the course of a year design and independently stitch sections of a canvas. They trade instructions so each one ends up with an entire piece but done in their own colors. The instructors are Mary Hartman, Mary Knapp, Linda Reinmiller and Debbie Rowley. You sign up for the retreat without seeing the piece. They post their canvas colors and threads on line and you pick the color you like.

When you get the retreat at the reception they show you the piece, this year has lots of sparkle and to be honest I love them all. They also are getting better and better every year. If you want more info. go to http://needleartsmysteryretreat.com. We've only been coming a few years but they offer the chance to take the prior year's piece before the new piece and I've caught up and have all their pieces at home (unstitched of course).

Last night they told us that next years will be in Portland, Oregon. The nice thing is that it is a smaller group and is held in a smaller and less expensive hotel than the big national seminars. This year the hotel is in Grove, Ohio just outside of Columbus and is a really nice Drury Inn.

Well, my stitching is calling and I better get going.

More later.

So much for good intentions

I said I was going to post more often, but as you can see the month got away from me. I've been stitching like crazy and trying to keep up with other stuff in my life. I decided I needed to add some exercise to my life (moving your fingers just doesn't burn that many calories) so I've been doing water aerobics three days a week and between the heat and the exercise, I've had to take a nap in the afternoon so it's cut into my productivity. I know it's good for me, so plan to keep it up. It does get better, naps are getting shorter.

I sent off 4 proposals for classes at The National NeedleArts Association, which is the trade organization for the needlework industry. Now I have to finish the stitch guides. I'll need to ask the designers I'm stitching for if it's okay to post pictures of their pieces. If they give me permission, I'll put them on the website so y'all can have a sneak peak of what's coming.

The Yarn Barn where I work part-time is getting ready for ANG Seminar in August and we've had lots of canvases painted with San Antonio inspired designs. One of them is a 3-d Alamo by Squiggee Designs which I've stitch and am writing a stitch guide for. I'll post a picture in the next couple of days. It came back from the finisher and is just darling, if I do say so myself.

We got this strange wet stuff that fell out of the sky today, it's been so long since we had rain I'd forgotten where the windshield wipers were in the car. It wasn't much but it was the most we've had in months.

I'm off to a class but will try to add more next week.

Cindy

4th of July

I'm taking a short break from unpacking more boxes so I thought I'd just update my blog for today.

I finally got the shelves set up in my studio so now comes the fun part of unloading all the boxes (ugh). It is kind of interesting to open a box and find a needlepoint canvas you forgot you owned, sort of like Christmas morning, but it's also discouraging to see how much you have.

I did some stitching yesterday on a Princess and Me proposal for The National NeedleArts Association, the trade organization for shops. I need to get them all done by the July 21st since that the deadline. I'll post some pictures as I get time.

Well, back to the boxes.

stitching

I'm doing some blogging that is being posted on Janet Burnett's blog and decided to go ahead and add them to my site also. I keep saying that I'm going to do a better job of blogging but to be really honest, I'd rather stitch than type. If you don't know Janet is the owner of A Collection of Designs. I love her canvases and was really excited when she asked me to blog about what I'm doing. Please bear with me as I learn to post pictures, etc. to this blog.

Here's what I sent Janet today about the stitching of her design ACOD 2614. I'll also be posting about other things I'm stitching for other designers.

6/27/11
It was late one night earlier this week and I was in the middle of a movie, when I finished the piece I was stitching on. I didn't want to run around and find another piece to stitch and this was sitting there on stretcher bars just waiting for me to pull threads. I ran into the stitching room during the commercial and pulled two DMC Flosses for the border, thinking that would keep me busy until the end of the movie and I would pull the rest in the morning and then blog about what I was doing. I finished the border just as the movie ended.

The next morning I got up and just didn't want to go to the computer, so I thought: Okay, I'll just stitch some and then blog about it later. I went into the stitching room and pulled a few threads (my threads are semi organized, with Elfa drawers holding Rainbow Gallery turned on their sides, so I can see the colors and the Kreinik in a big drawer, I actually have a DMC spinner rack with the entire line of DMC Floss on it). So my pulling consists of going through those drawers and looking at the rack and basically, just putting things that I think might work in a bag with the canvas. I sat down to watch stuff on tape. Well, the next thing I knew the piece was almost done, I only needed the trees and the purple. I borrowed the Neon Rays from the candy cane with the light bulbs I talked about earlier. I wanted to use Flair for the purple stripes, light bulb and triangles but didn't have any in the stash. I did have Frosty Rays that was purple. I used that and removed the inside core. I've done this before and actually used the core thread and the outside as two separate threads in one piece.

I love his knit scarf and gloves. I don't know if you can tell from the picture but I have this thing about noses on snowmen. If the snowman is facing you the nose should stick out, like a carrot would on a real snowman, so I came up with a stitch that gives some dimension, it's a pistol stitch and then you come up at the outside and go down through the middle on at least 3 different sides to make it stand up. The nose at least sticks out some.

I had so much fun with this piece, I finished him in about 6 hours. I thought my broom handle came out pretty good, I blended the two flosses from the borders to make it. Hope you'll have fun looking at him.

I really wish we had some cooler weather, these 99 degree days are awful. We need rain really bad. One of the ladies in my water aerobics class was saying that she is having to sell off the last of her cattle because her spring has dried up. People here are leaving buckets of water for the deer because our pond is almost gone.

Well, back to stitching. I'll try to post more regularly.

Cindy

Moving

Wow! It hardly seems possible that I'm finally retired and moving to the beautiful Hill Country. I've been stitching up a storm and as I get settled in and have more time I'll start building this blog.

Right now I'm busy packing, unpacking and trying to keep track of everything so nothing gets shoved in a box that I'll need to be working on.

It can get a little frustrating when the pillow you want to get to the finisher is in one location and fabric to complete it is 200 miles away.

Back to the boxes.

Cindy