Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Scottish Santa and a New Canvas

Hello!

I have been on a stitching tear here in SC! I finished my chrismon, my july sheep, and lots of progress on the Scottish santa. I am doing pretty much the whole santa with silk and ivory threads. I love stitching with threads that I do not get to use that often. I love silk and ivory, but sometimes it is too thick on 18 count canvas.


Because I have been stitching a lot of Christmas or Christmas colored things, I have been trying to branch out to something that would be a bit brighter. Sooo... I thought I would try this Kelly Clark Angel! She is so pink and pretty! And I love the lime green. I had to go all the way to Charleston to find her. I went to several shops: Po's Point in Charlotte, Needle and Canvas in Spartanburg, and finally to It's a Stitch in Charleston. Needle and Canvas is a shop that I have not visited before and consequently have not reviewed on this blog before. I really enjoyed the shop and was quite surprised to find such a nice shop in Spartanburg. It is very similar to the shops in Houston and to It's a Stitch. The thread selection is broad with lots of colors in each line (silk n' ivory, burmilana, etc), and the canvas selection includes lots of Christmas things and lots of things from other seasons from lots of famous designers. If I was in the Christmas canvas mood, I would have bought a few! They had at least two Scottish santa canvases!


Monday, May 24, 2010

One finish!

Hi! I had a canvas finish this week! I am with my DH and Molly in South Carolina, so I took up an old canvas. This canvas is part of the Designing Women chrismon series. A chrismon is a Christian symbol that is made into an ornament and hung on a tree. Sometimes chrismons are made out of beads, but this is a needlepoint one. I have done about 9 total, including this one, for my Christmas tree. There are about 100 in this series, so I buy about three at a time and have them all in a bag with the threads ready to go. These are the canvases I pick up whenever I have to go somewhere on short notice or take something small.

I am doing these canvases in pearle cotton and kreinik with tent stitches throughout. A piece in this series was one of the first pieces that I finished in my needlepoint career (started in the Spring of 2006). In order to honor that piece, remain consistent, and celebrate classic needlepoint, I decided to continue the whole tent stitch/pearle cotton throughout.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

A finish and a new canvas!

I finished the July Sheep!! I put the last few beads in today! I love the way it turned out even though I had to pull the background out twice! Here it is!



I also purchased a new Kelly Clark that came in from the Dallas Market.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Fin!

I have finished the Charleston round! This piece actually took a lot longer than I anticipated. I decided to take a week off of needlepoint in order to catch up on some reading, and then dive back into Charleston with a new outlook. I finished Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts and started The Duchess by Amanda Foreman. If you can't tell, I am on a 18th century reading binge! I would highly recommend both books. Needlepoint wise, this took a long time because I kept changing the threads. The houses are done with Planet Earth 6 strand silk and Soy Luster. The sky is Watercolours, and the wheels of the carriage are the new DMC memory thread. I love how this turned out in the end, but all of the little pieces on this canvas made it take FOREVER. Needless to say, I was definitely ready to be done with this one.


Charleston
by
Silver Needle


In other news, I got a full-time job in Houston! DH and I are making preparations to move back to Houston from SC.

I got some finishing back from the finisher- pictures to follow!