August 2009 Blog Posts (13)

Challenge Piece has a name....

sometimes the design tells you the name right off the bat, other times you have to wait for for it to speak to you. Today, one of the inspiration designs let me in on this little secret. This site not only gave me a glimpse into how the background fabric will affect the design but also gave me the name of a Japanese Bush Warbler: "Uguisu".

Plum in Japanese is… Continue

Added by Christa Evans on August 31, 2009 at 23:30 — 5 Comments

Inspiration and Color

Now that I have a design in mind its time to find inspiration with a theme and color. For this project I went through all of my Japanese Embroidery and general embroidery books to pick up ideas. Because plum and the bush warbler are both symbolic of spring, it was very easy to choose it as the theme. Also, although I am very attached to fall colors I am currently working Saki Boxes in fall colors so it will be a nice break to work in what I consider the opposite colors - pastels.

One… Continue

Added by Christa Evans on August 31, 2009 at 21:48 — 6 Comments

Zentangle

I fell in love at first sight with elaborate doodles called Zentangles. A German designer translated one to stitches. There are more where that came from. http://marquoir.over-blog.de/

I am addicted. My progress thus far using a mystery spool of Hand Dyed Fiber silk on 36 ct. flax zweigart cloth.…

Continue

Added by Mips on August 31, 2009 at 21:41 — No Comments

JE Stitch Challenge 2009 - Design

The JE Group Challenge -- Design

The challenge piece gives us the option of incorporating one or more fans provided. We can use all or one of them, make them larger, smaller, and have creative license with color and patterns with a preference of traditional Japanese techniques. This challenge immediately piqued my creative side and the need to take a small rest from the phase piece… Continue

Added by Christa Evans on August 30, 2009 at 18:33 — 3 Comments

Christmas must be coming!

This is normally the time of year when there is so much to do that needlepoint hardly gets a look in. But not this year it seems. I cannot believe how busy I have been, sending out new orders for needlepoint/ tapestry kits. There has even been a rush for Christmas Stockings and Decorations, so stitchers are already planning ahead.

If you prefer to enjoy the summer before launching into Christmas, we have plenty of summery designs at One Off Needlework that are perfect for your holiday,… Continue

Added by Wendy Hope-Falkner on August 23, 2009 at 3:11 — No Comments

More about Jo...

Jo's Etsy shop

See how a real marketer gets the word out about her fab selection of hand-crafted items.

And, if you are looking for some vintage items to add to your stash, check out her other Etsy store here.

Added by MichelleMermaid on August 21, 2009 at 23:40 — No Comments

Jo's Groovy Giveaway

Hey,
Check out Jo's giveaway on her blog.
Dakotah
MichelleMermaid

Added by MichelleMermaid on August 17, 2009 at 13:53 — No Comments

Planning the big paint

Sunday 16th August 2009

Transferred the main outlines onto tracing paper today. This required use of the kitchen island (luckily suitably large and well lit). Four A3 professional sheets later, and the main pathways of sky, fields, roads, gardens and river were marked in.

Following this division I took crayons to designate the different areas to an appropriate colour, and where fading should take place, made notes. Suprising the many shades of green I am going to… Continue

Added by Kristina Graham on August 17, 2009 at 9:30 — No Comments

tatting

Well I finally put something on here as it's been a while. I'm still going tatting crazy and have just started adding beads to my tatting. I have aslo started up some embroidery to add to my quilts.I just can't seem to get everything done that I want to do. I want to do it all and at the same time. (haha) I'm gonna try to do part of day for tatting and part for embroidery and then who knows how I'll fit the quilting in. I can't quilt now because my sewing room has no air conditioning so I… Continue

Added by Judy on August 16, 2009 at 9:39 — No Comments

Photos of grandmother's jacket figures

Karen said she would like to see more of the figures I embroidered for my mother's great-grandmother's jacket. I have added most of them to my photos.

Added by Mary Walker on August 10, 2009 at 10:45 — No Comments

Assembling the giant slate frame

Saturday 8th August

Despite hot stuffy weather we set to the final stage of mounting the giant slate frame, but not without extreme difficulty.

The side bars do not fit into the long bar holes at all well, in fact so tight that even a hammer would not persuade the procedure.

Thinking caps. A trip to Homebase, a set of wood rasps, a pack of sandpaper and four hours later the bars slide in and out ungracefully with a bit of a shove and whack with the… Continue

Added by Kristina Graham on August 10, 2009 at 7:00 — No Comments

Mounting the duck

Saturday 1st August 2009

We have at last started mounting the main duck fabric onto the super huge slate frame. The frame is 110 inches long, and took two of us 2 hourse to oversew the duck fabric onto the webbing.

Next week we are stringing the side arms, and then the big pull to gain the drum tension. The entire fabric area will be 100 inches by 45 inches.

We will then tack on a placement grid, and start to draw in with tacking stitches the skyline,… Continue

Added by Kristina Graham on August 3, 2009 at 7:30 — No Comments

More Saturdays later...about 3 more starts then...

I almost made it out of the weekend without a new start. I knew it would be difficult when I couldn't get color possibilities out of my head since seeing the sampler in Samplers & Antique Needlework Quarterly, Fall 2009, issue 56. They published a Queenstown reproduction: 1819 Elizabeth Powell Sampler.

I couldn't wait to get home Saturday. I tried to resist for as long as I could which ended up being around 5 hours. I thought the sampler looked kind of flat. Lovely enough to… Continue

Added by Mips on August 3, 2009 at 5:30 — No Comments

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