Just Call Me Rumpelstiltskin

Sorry I haven't been blogging much this month. I've been soooo busy on a variety of fronts that I just haven't had time to sit down, draw a deep breath, and think about stitching - let alone DO some stitching. Whew. It's been that crazy (but in a good way - grin)....

My latest preoccupation is getting ready for the EGA National Seminar, being held in San Francisco next week. I've signed up for a table at their Wednesday Merchandise Event, which is a fun-filled day of stitchy shopping heaven for all those Seminar attendees.

I've been busy printing lots of patterns. And I also spent some time hand-dying some thread (three different weights of pearl cottons) - which is something I do occasionally. (And before you all ask: unfortunately I'm NOT selling any of my thread on my website. It's just too much work to get into the thread-dying business full-time and it would take me away from my designing work - which is my TRUE passion. And besides, there are already lots of different thread companies out there that provide us with plenty of hand-dyed threads.) Anyway, it's really messy, back-breaking work, but as you might imagine, having lots of luscious thread at the end is well worth all the effort.

I feel like the girl in the old fairy tale that is stuck in a room with pile of straw and told to weave it into gold. Here's what my boring "pile of straw" looked like before I started:


At this point, I get into my old paint-spattered clothes, slip on some plastic gloves and start painting thread....

And here's what it looks like after it has been rinsed and is drying on the line:


Then it needs to be twisted back into skeins and labeled, but here's what all the hard work is about:


My straw has been turned into stitching GOLD: lots and lots of gorgeous thread to play with....dream with...and ultimately -- stitch with!

So, if you're lucky enough to be going to the EGA Seminar in September, please stop by and say "Hi" ... and check out all my treasure!

Time to Cool Off!

I thought I'd show you some more of my designs that feature blues and greens. On a hot summer day there's nothing cooler than stitching on a cool new project that has lots of blues and greens.... aquas and purples are pretty cool too, don't you think?

Anyway here's some more coolness for you to savor. And if they inspire you to take a big splashy leap into a cool new project -- all the better!

Reflecting Pools (the ultimate cool design!)

Sapphire Star

Pacific Coast Collage

Nature Sampler (a blackwork design)

Koi Pond (a blackwork design)

Malachite Maze(totally green, but still cool!)

Polaris

Turquoise Trail

And I'll close with a very cool Blue Hydrangeas

and the bluest of blue flowers, Bluebonnet Collage

Pages of Inspiration

A non-stitcher friend of mine recently asked me where I get my inspiration from (something lots of people have asked me over the years), and if I ever run out of ideas. OH CONTRAIRE!! I told her that my problem is having TOO MANY IDEAS and consequently having to tell them all to quit crowding me, and to take a number and I'll get around to them eventually!

Case in point: this morning I took the time to browse through some home design magazines. In a spring issue of Traditional Home I came across several intriguing possibilities for future designs and I thought I'd share them with you, to show you how my "designing mind" works....


This is a large Henry Moore lithograph that caught my eye. I immediately translated this composition to squares of stitchy patterns and abstracted shapes. Can you see how well this might be adapted as an abstract canvaswork design? It could be large or small, monochromatic or multi-colored too....


Okay, focus on the wallpaper in this photo.It's a Victorian-looking wallpaper that struck me as an excellent format for a geometric canvaswork piece. Picture a large diamond shape, made up of four of the smaller diamond shapes (with the medallions at each intersection). That creates four diamond boxes to fill with something or other -- blackwork? flowers? intricate geometrics?? Hmmmmmm...lots of in-ter-est-ing poss-i-bil-i-ties.


Now this photo caught my eye because of the large floral painting on the wall. It reminds me of some of the happy, graphic, floral painted canvases we stitchers are seeing more and more of in the needlepoint market. Just imagine what a big stitched floral canvas would look like in place of this painting. And why don't these interior designers use some needlepoint on their walls? Hey, You Guys, NEEDLEWORK IS ART TOO!!!


Is this a happy room or what?!? My eye was immediately drawn to the big square canvases of color cubes. I'M SEEIN' BLOCKS OF STITCHING HERE - each done in a different color and stitch pattern. Picture a series of canvases (12" x 12"? 16 x 16"? or even larger? whoa, how about stitching these on 13 ct canvas?) with these same collections of colors, but stitched! They could be monochromatic, as stitch or color studies; or they could be color family studies. Either way, a stitcher could have a really great time working on a series like this.

Sooooo, you see my dilemma as a designer? I'm equally intrigued by all of those pictures. Which of these ideas do I pursue first? Because, trust me, I wanna try ALL of them! And eventually I will, but for now I'll dog-ear the pages in the magazines, scribble some notes to myself in my little notebook, and then get back to stitching on the projects I have going now. If I stitch a little bit faster, maybe I can get those done and then start designing something new next week....Stay tuned, Stitchers!!

A Blast From The Past

Last week was one of the most unexpectedly busy and unusual weeks I'ver ever had. Not only did I have a flurry of calls and orders from stitchers and stores all over the country for my new pattern, ONE LONG PANEL, but totally out of the blue, I got an email/query from a friend I'd lost touch with many years ago.

Thanks to this wondrous thing called the worldwide Internet, my old friend Liz and I have reconnected and it's been so much fun talking to her again. After firing off a string of emails back and forth, we agreed to meet "face to face" in a video call on SKYPE. Once our computers connected to each other, we were able to see one another, and of course, the first thing we both said to each other as we were jumping up and down is: "YOU HAVEN'T CHANGED A BIT!!!" And then we were OFF, chattering and laughing and getting caught up on 30 years worth of stories.

Here's Liz (and her wonder dog Lucas) from umpteen years ago, when we first met...and yes, I'm the one taking the picture:


That's my horse, Final Appeal, a Quarter horse I got straight off the race track who didn't know diddly except running hard in a straight line. He was SOOOOOO young and nervous and green and inexperienced. And frankly, so was I.

Enter Liz Mooz, horse trainer extraordinaire! With the patience of a saint and more contagious enthusiasm than anyone I'd ever met, she spent a lot of time working with me and Appeal so that eventually, he became a calm and collected pleasure horse, and I became a much more confident rider.

Those years I spent riding and working with Liz, going to horse shows and just plain revelling in all that horsey-ness were truly some the best years of my life. Eventually our paths separated and Liz moved out of state to become a nationally known horse trainer and breeder of the most extraordinary horses, while I found my own niche in the stitchery world. Incidently, Liz is now a personal chef in the Lebanon, Indiana area (check out Liz' blog: The Nutrition Police News.....which might actually force her to write some more on her blog - big grin here...)

Liz, I can't tell you how glad I am you contacted me after all these years....and I can't wait to SKYPE again and catch up on aaalllll the other stuff we have to share with one another! And oh yeah Liz, here's a photo I found of my beloved Appaloosa, Stormy - the club-footed, one-eyed jumper. Remember this terrific guy???


(And All You Stitchers Out There: if you ever think about old friends you've lost touch with, why not try Googling their names and see if you can find them online. The experience is one I would highly recommend!)

I Take a Stand

Several stitchers have asked me about the floorstands I showed in some of my recent photos. I have two wooden floorstands that I use. I got both of them at the old Cross Stitch Festivals many, many years ago.

The first one I call my "UFO" stand, since I can't remember the company that made it. They also sold scroll bar sets that had nice wooden knobs and their product slogan was "wood against wood and metal against metal" which was supposed to keep all the moving parts durable.


I like the long dowel arms on this stand, because I can make them any length I want, to fit any size project. It works best with scroll bars, but I've also used it for projects on stretcher bars too.

My other floorstand is a Gripit Plus model that I got one year when my booth was next to theirs at a craft & quilt show. Here's what it looks like:


What's really great about this floorstand is how flexible it is and how you can make the project come to YOU, instead of stretching across the project. There are so many moving sections that you can position it any way you want. I especially like the way the scroll bar section tilts down left and right, so you can slant the project lower on one side so you can snuggle up nice and cozy to your project.

Since I always have so many projects going at once (and they're all on different scroll or stretcher bars), I seldom leave just one project attached to my stand. So I have also rigged up a way to use this stand with other types of scroll or stretcher bars. I simply use a set of small vice grips (you can find a variety of these in any hardware store) to clamp my project to the protruding bars, like this:


All that being said, I have no idea if either of these models are still available. I do know that a stitching friend of mine (Lou in NC) just ordered a large wooden floorstand from K's Creations and she is absolutely delighted with it because it doesn't wobble and it fits up to her comfy stitching chair, has a cool handy tray for all her tools - plus it folds down to a flat storing size.

If you're interested in getting a floorstand for your growing stitching obsession, why not try researching a bit on the internet? Think about the qualities you want in a stand, then visit some of the many online stores to see what they carry. I'm sure you'll find something that fits your needs perfectly!

A New Design

I try to release a new design every month, if possible. And this month I've got something a little different to show you. I call it ONE LONG PANEL (well, really, I was stumped and couldn't think what else to call it). I was inspired to create it after flipping through a home decor magazine one day and seeing a plain, long, rectangular solid color - framed - on the wall of a home. I stopped and thought, "Shoot, a stitched panel would be much prettier than that!" And I promptly set out to design something similar. And I also confess that I happened to have a lovely long frame that would fit the design perfectly....so here's what I came up with:


It's 4.5" x 16" long and I stitched it on 18 ct. tan mono canvas (the old "brown" canvas). I've used a variegated Watercolours (257 - Spearmint) as the foundation color, and then matched up a few solid color #5 pearl cottons, plus a few Ribbon Floss colors and some gold metallics as well.

Here's what some of the sections look like up close:




I picked five fun and elegant main patterns, and as I was stitching I realized I could separate them with four entirely different bands - to create a long band sampler, but one that definitely wasn't traditional or old-fashioned! And frankly, it was kinda fun to stitch something that was long and rectangular, instead of the usual square shape.

And THEN I also realized this design is a truly great one for changing colors. In fact, I've included on the back page four other colorways for this design, in peach, purple, pink, and blue. But you don't have to stop there -- this is a great design for stitchers to choose their OWN colors to match their OWN decor! (Stitchers can also change the canvas color too, if they want a different color background...)

So, if you're interested in a new shape for stitching, please check out my ONE LONG PANEL on my website.

Bonjour, Mon Amis!

Last week I finally finished this little canvas of the French hotel.

After doing all the architectural elements, I was able to get to stitch the fun dimensional stuff --the flowers! Here's a close-up of my flower boxes:


I stitched the foliage with variegated greens; first the dark to medium greens, then a lighter green on top.... all in very haphazard lazy daisy stitches going every which way.

Then I added the flowers on top, using two pink Ribbon Floss colors. I made large french knots (three wraps around the needle) so the flowers would be big and floppy. For the flowers above the hotel sign, I added smaller french knots (only one wrap around the needle) in pale yellow Ribbon Floss. The canvas actually only had greenery above the sign, but I decided to add a little bit of soft yellow so there were even MORE flowers on the canvas.

Notice how I made a doornob using gold beads... I really like the look of this polished addition! And if you look carefully on the windows, you can see a few diagonal stitches I placed on top, after I stitched both windows in plain ol' tent stitch. It just looked like a window screen, so I decided to try adding some random slashes of silver thread, to see if it would look more like window reflections - and it does, especially at a slant. (But the metallic is kinda hard to see in the photos.)

So, HURRAH!, a canvas finished and ready to frame, a project crossed of the list ..... and now on to the next project!!