Blue Bonnet Studio and book

Took my new book Noses, Roses and Other Fun Stuff to Blue Bonnet Studio where Mary Alice was nice enough to sell it for me.  It was very well received and I was even asked to autograph a copy.  I'm really excited.  I wasn't very sure how it would go over so I didn't have very many printed, but there should be more from the printer soon.  I contacted everyone privately on Facebook, who inquired about the book.

Here's the information for everyone who is interested:


Noses, Roses and Other Fun Stuff will sell direct for $32 plus postage and handling of $4.00 for regular mail and $6.00 for priority mail.  Residents in Texas should include $2.65 for sales tax.

Send to Cynthia Thomas, 408 Native Oak St., Ingram, TX  78025

Shop owners may contact me for wholesale pricing:   needleartisan@hotmail.com

Starting to get things in from market for stitching, so I'll be sharing some of those things.

Had to include a stop at a favorite stop for a chocoholic Berdoll's Pecans, just outside of Bastrop.  I'm so proud of myself.  I didn't purchase any chocolate, just fresh tomatoes.  (I won't mention that I already have two bags of dark chocolate covered toffee at home, that I'm rationing 1 per day limit).

Off to TNNA Market

It's been a fun day kitting everything up for the TNNA market.  The problem with teaching 3 classes is that's a lot of kits. I'll be doing Jolly for Princess and Me; Snow Night for Melissa Prince Designs and the December Baby Cakes for Rebecca Wood.

Jolly

Snowy Night

Baby Cakes - Christmas

I've been busy finishing up the stitch guide for Melissa Shirley's 866 - 12 Days of Christmas Angels stitch guides.  Can't decide what angels is my favorite.  Maybe 3 French Hens.  The idea was to have the paint on the skirts show through to provide shading.

I'm busy working on another set of canvases for Melissa I'll post more later.















I sent off a Christmas stocking stitch guide for Elizabeth Turner Collection, so I'm interested in talking to Meredith at market and see what she though.

Shelly Tribbey tells me that the skeleton canvas made up into a really cute pillow.  I can't wait to see it at market, she has the greatest finisher.  The beading on the skulls on the outside took over 1 night each but they were well worth it.  I guess they made up for how fast the stitching went on the rest of the piece.

Finished proofing the copy for my stitch guides to appear in Needlepoint Now in the July/August issue.  They are Rebecca Wood Baby Cakes.

Well, time to go stitch.

Goofy Ghouls - old draft

This is one of the old blogs which I left in draft form.  I'm going to go ahead and post this because she is one of my favorite pieces.  The series in out now and you can see it on Rebecca's website and sign up through you participating shops.  I really liked the witch but the other pieces were great fun also.

I got permission from Rebecca Wood to post a picture of this fun series we are working on called Goofy Ghouls Halloween Club. It is going to consist of 6 pieces and we'll introduce it at the January TNNA market in Phoenix. I've only got 3 of the pieces so far. Wackie Witchie is the first piece. I think the nose and the spider are my favorite parts but I thought her hat brim was interesting also, it is 3-d.

I knew when I saw the piece that I wanted those two elements to stand out. Sometimes it's really tough to wait until the piece is finished to add those little touches.

Cindy

Hi

Please don't faint!  I know it's been a while since I posted.  To be really honest I find that I would much rather stitch than work on the computer, I guess some of that is a hang over from my job when I use to spend up to 14 hours a day working on a computer.  I keep trying to be better.

I've been stitching away, I had 48 stitch guides come out at the January market.  You can see a lot of them on Rebecca Wood's website.  I really like the way they did the Nativity in the basket.

One of the fun projects I did for January (although they were all fun) was a butterfly for A Collection of Designs.  Since I didn't have to write a stitchguide for it I kind of went crazy.  I had great fun attaching flatback Swarovski Crystals for the "eyes" on the wings setting them inside Jessica stitches.  I did learn you have to keep the canvas flat until the glue dries or the crystals slide, also learned that you can remove the crystals without damaging the canvas but it was a scary process because they don't come off easily.  At least now I don't have to worry that they would fall off at the slightest touch.   Janet used it as an insert in a purse, the lights at market sparkled off the crystals.

One of my new projects for the June market was this Shelly Tribbey skull.  Seems like Day of the Dead canvases are going to be popular this year.  It's hard to tell from this picture but all of the skulls around the edge are beaded.  It took a while but I think it was well worth the effort.  The beading made up for how fast the rest of it went, the skull in the center was done in Kreinik #8 032 in a Kennan stitch and let the gray paint show through for the shading.  My students always look at me funny when I tell them to forget shading snow and let the paint show through the thread.  I find this works well on Kreinik, Crystal Braid and Caron Snow.

Cindy

PS  Just realized I had written some blogs which I left as a draft so I'll review those and maybe post if they are still of interest.

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.