THANK YOU, ALL YOU WONDERFUL STITCHERS!

I've just received a special "I Love Your Blog" award from Sunflower Crossing.


May I say here that what makes it EXTRA special to me is knowing that cross-stitchers are finding and reading my blog - which is mostly about counted canvaswork (i.e.: needlepoint!). So: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
It also makes me glad (and proud) to realize that all of us stitchers - no matter what TYPE of stitching we do - are related by a shared passion for our needlework. And no matter how far apart we may be in miles, we are truly close to one another in our hearts and spirits...all because of our love of stitching! Isn't it AMAZING??

We know first-hand how powerful a tiny needle and piece of thread can be, because they have touched and perhaps even changed all our lives, haven't they?

Well, according to the rules of this award:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you’ve nominated.

Well, you know how hard THAT is - I love to read all the blogs posted on the right. Most times I just start at the top, and hop down the list, checking in and reading what all those stitchers are doing...So I'm just gonna close my eyes and stab a random seven, because I enjoy them all SOOO much, and they ALL inspire me to smile and keep stitching!

Here's my list (in no particular order):

It's Not Your Grandmother's Needlepoint
Tintock Tap
Spinster Stitcher
Happy Stitcher
Squiggeeland
Create Needlepoint
NeedleArtNut

P.S. to all you Cross-Stitchers (and you know who you are!): Thank you for reading my counted canvas blog. I hope it inspires you to try some counting on CANVAS one of these days (if you haven't done it already.) It makes a nice change from making all those little xxxxxxx's, don't you know! ....

California's Gold Country

Last weekend, I traveled up to the Gold Country to teach a class at Kelsey's Needle Krafts, in Placerville, California. It all came about as a result of meeting so many nice stitchers from the Placerville area when I taught this summer at Asilomar, and they in turn, asked their local stitchery store (Kelsey's, which is owned and run by Sue Rees) to invite me up to teach a one-day class.

I asked my mom to come with me, so I'd have some company on the trip. We traveled down from Healdsburg (in the Northern California Wine Country), across thru Sacramento (the central valley of California), and then up into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains - which is generally known as "The Gold Country". [Travel time from Healdsburg to Placerville, including a stop for much-needed iced coffee and several unbelievable traffic slowdowns: 4+ hours.]

On Saturday, I spent the day teaching a specially-designed California Poppy project to a wonderful bunch of Placerville ladies. It was a large group: about 20 stitchers in the back of Sue Rees' shop. And boy, did we have a good time! It's always fun to share your passion with like-minded people, isn't it? (It just makes stitching all the more fun, when you get to share it with others....) In any event, the day went by very fast, and by the end of the class, I was pleased to see that all the stitchers had their projects started and well underway (which always makes me feel good, too).

The next day, Sunday, Mom and I decided to take the scenic route back home and headed down Hwy 49, which meanders thru lots of charming Gold Country towns.

Our first stop was Coloma, where gold was first discovered, on the banks of the American River.

[ASIDE: Every Gold Rush town seems to have its own self-proclaimed title, and Coloma is no exception. It's called the "Golden Stepping Stone to the Gold Country". Which makes perfect sense, since it WAS the start of the whole Gold Rush. Other town titles I recall are: Nevada City - Queen of the Northern Mines" and Sonora - "Queen of the Southern Mines".]

Anyway, above is a shot of the American River, and then about 100 yds above it, Sutter's sawmill, where James Marshall found the first pieces of gold glinting in the water that had been diverted up to the mill.

After wandering around the site for a while (it's a state park now), looking at the various small and primitive buildings, we decided to go up in the hills above the river to see James Marshall's cabin, his burial site, and a REALLY BIG monument commemorating his discovery.


Here are photos of his monument (presumably Marshall is pointing down to the river and his gold discovery..."Yessirrree, that's where it allll started, folks... That spot right down there...")



You can't tell from these up-close photos,



but....


See...

I TOLD you it was a REALLY BIG monument!!

And then we got back in the car, and traveled down, down, down, along the twisty turny American River, thru the tiny town of Cool (which was actually very hot) until we finally arrived in Auburn. [Since I was driving and had BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL AT ALL TIMES, I wasn't able to take any more pictures, but trust me, it was a very windy steep road down and then back up to Auburn.] Back to Hwy 80, the big major highway that turns east - up to Lake Tahoe - or, in our case, west - back down to Sacramento, and ultimately, back home to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Stitchers, BEWARE!

Thank you, Blog Readers, for you kind comments about my newly-finished HOUSE AT CROW CORNERS. To answer your questions:

~ The whimsical painted canvas comes from Dream House Ventures (Vickie Hastings, designer). The finished size is approximately 7" by 8" on 18 ct. canvas.

~ As many of you may relate to, I was so focused on COMPLETING the piece, I didn't really give much thought to HOW I was going finish it once the stitching was done.

~ As Coni suggested, it certainly would make a cute stand-up project...if I wanted to do all that work. Nope. I decided to frame it - my usual fast and easy finishing technique. (I cut mat board to fit the piece, then lace it up in both directions using long pieces of #5 pearl cotton.)

[And here's My Secret Finishing Tip #1: Periodically, I check my local discount stores for frames. I especially look for square frames, but often times you can get good long narrow frames too...I ignore the image, the matting and the glass...and just look for interesting frames. If they're on sale because the glass is cracked, so much the better. I don't put my stitchery behind glass. Now I have quite a stash of frames, so I went looking for a dark frame to fit this house, and lo and behold, I had the perfect dark frame with bronze accents.]

(Okay, stitchers, are you sitting down?!? This is going to shock you, so BEWARE of what comes next!!...)

[My Secret Finishing Tip #2: Occasionally, when I don't want to stitch a background on a canvas, I'll color it with colored pencils. Yes, you heard right - I use colored pencils. I can hear your collective gasp out there....Yup. Colored. Pencils. Scribbled. Directly. On. The. Canvas. (Quick! Grab your smelling salts, ladies!)]

Here's my process: Sometimes, I'll color right up against the stitched image - like a santa, for instance - and then fade out to the borders. Yes, you have to be really careful not to brush up against the stitching. But once you get over the shock of coloring on the canvas, you get a little braver, and that's when I start overlaying different colors.

In the photo above, I used greens, oranges and golds, starting softly and then building up pressure and darkness around the outer edges. I was aiming for a spooky forest look, and I think it does look like an illustration in a storybook. You can smear the pencil colors with your fingers, or a bit of rag to soften/blur the colors. And then I went back over in bolder marks to increase the look of scratchy scribble lines. Above, you can just see some orange, gold, and green lines in the shadowy areas.

And yes, I do sort of hold my breath while doing this because I don't want to get carried away and end up with a muddy mess. But at some point, as I'm carefully scribbling away, I say to myself, " oh, well, in for a dime, in for a dollar" and just go to it. Worse case scenario: if I hate it, I can cut a close mat for it and cover most of it. (And, before you ask: I don't use any fixatives, but I don't rub my fingers all over it, either. And I don't expect these pieces to be sent to any museum or last for two hundred years, so I really don't worry about the wearability of this coloring process. These fun pieces are for my enjoyment only and I don't expect them to last forever....)

So there..... now you know some of my most PRIVATE and SHOCKING finishing secrets. Do with them what you will....if you are brave enough to give them a try....ha, ha, ha...

The House at Crow Corner

Here's a canvas I purchased last autumn. I saw it at my local needlework shop, REGAL RABBIT, and immediately fell in love with it. (I JUST LOVE HOUSES - of practically any kind or color - and find them impossible to resist. sigh.)

I started stitching on it last year, but you know how, sometimes, when you reach a certain area of a painted canvas and you can't figure out what to do, it stops you in your tracks and you lose your stitching momentum? So you set the canvas aside, start stitching something else, and consequently, forget all about it until you pull it out later and decide to tackle the problem area? (Can you RELATE to that? hmmm??)

Well, that's what happened to me. I was going along, happily stitching the variegated clapboards, and tent stitching all the cute stained-glass windows...when I got to the roof area and just....STOPPED. The roof areas were so small, they couldn't handle large overlapping shingle patterns, or even offset cashmeres....So I put the canvas away and forgot about it.

Until THIS year, when I pulled it out again and determined to finish it by October.

Sooo, I had to figure out what to do with the roof. I settled on tent stitching the background, but first placing little random scotch stitches. It gives enough of a discreet pattern to suggest a patched roof, without overwhelming the little house.
(Actually, it kinda looks like the roof has lots of warts, doesn't it?) But I'm pleased with it. And also pleased that it got me over the hateful HUMP and allowed me to continue stitching on the rest of it.

And check out the two-broom garage! Isn't that a hoot?

And of course, once I had all the stitching done, I had to figure out how to deal with the little colored "dots" that were sprinkled in the sky - were they supposed to be falling leaves, or pieces of candy (my preference)? Anyway, beads were the answer - in muted autumn leaf colors. So I went to a bead store in Santa Rosa and found some great beads! But THEN, to put on the falling beads, I needed totally invisible thread, right? So I rummaged around in my old sewing stuff and pulled out some invisible quilting thread and used that. Perfect!

Well, I'm pleased with everything: the roof, the beads that suddenly look like piles of leaves, the crows and even the smoke swirls coming out of the chimneys (I added that, so it looks like someone is home. I also added a black cat charm.) And, best of all, I got it finished it plenty of time to display for October! Woo Hoo!

Town House For Sale

I've recently finished stitching up my latest counted canvas quilt design; it's called TOWN HOUSE. (It provides a totally different look and layout from my earlier COUNTRY CABIN design.)

I was inspired to create a monochomatic quilt pattern after I visited my sister, who has been working on putting together a house quilt using all red and white fabrics. I thought to myself, "Hey, I should try that with thread!" So I came home, pulled out some monochromatic variegated threads, and after doodling around with house blocks, came up with this design.

I couldn't decide which color to focus on: red, blue, green or purple. But blue won out this time. (But on the pattern, I include the thread choices for the other color options as well.)

And I have to admit: it was really hard to stick with the monochromatic blue. I really, really wanted to stitch with a variegated thread that had other colors, but I resisted - I so seldom stay in one color, I thought it would make a good stitching challenge for me. For extra fun, I used lots of a soft blue, metallic Ribbon Floss in the border areas (it matches the lightest blue pearl cotton, so it's hard to see in the photo, but in the flesh, the piece has a nice shimmery sheen to it). And I COULD have used a very pale blue for the background as well, but decided to play it safe and use ecru instead. (But I do list the pale blue color on the pattern, if anyone wanted to use it for the background color.)


I designed two different house blocks; one house has shutters and one house has two chimneys. And the striped and checkered border worked up so fast and fun, that it truly was a pleasure to stitch. All in all, this pattern was really a fun one to work on. So, if you're interested in it, check my website in a few days....I'll be posting it for sale sometime soon.

(FYI: I still think this would be tremendously fun to stitch in other variegated colors...or, hey - how 'bout every house being a different color? Anyway, I definitely think this pattern has lots of potential for stitchers who like to create their own color combinations! ...And I sure think this would make a darn cute pillow top, too!)

Leaves in the Forest

I had such a good time walking and taking pictures in the redwood forest, that I thought I'd share these leaf shots with you, too....Consider them a preview of the fast-approaching autumn, here in Northern California:

Nature Sampler

For those of you who asked, here is the full picture of NATURE SAMPLER, that I showed just a part of in my last posting....


It's one of my favorite blackwork pieces, and quite large - 14" x 14" on 25 ct. Lugana fabric.

You can see how easy this layout is. Just a simple pattern for the border lines, with lots of boxes to fill with favorite patterns, alternating with backstitched line drawings of favorite nature motifs. And it's finished off with a larger border pattern to surround the whole thing.

This layout can be used for smaller blocks as well. ( A smaller four-patch or nine-patch would be easy to work up.) Something to think about, if you want to create your own blackwork sampler or "doodle cloth" of favorite blackwork patterns....

P.S.: The NATURE SAMPLER and the BLACKWORK PATTERNS book are both available on my website: www.ljperindesigns.com. If you're interested in ordering them, check my weblink listed on the right to get to my website, then check on the ORDER FORM page.