Finishes

Two pieces finished and framed! Happy Dance! Whisper (on the right) and Atrium (above)are back from the framer. I hope to get them hung tonight. They aren't really the same size! Atrium is small, the stitched piece is just 5x5.

Classic Posters for Needlepoint

Sorry about the slide show! I just couldn't get it to work right. I put all the photos into a Picture Package in Photoshop and here it is. These are most of the projects in the book.

Classic Posters for Needlepoint

Today I am giving you a glimpse into my former life, when I was known as Liz Irvine. Back in the 1970s I was designing like a fury and my then-husband encouraged me to publish a book. The result was "Classic Posters for Needlepoint", published in 1978 by Dover Publications. All of the charted designs in this book were adapted from turn of the century posters by The Beggarstaffs, Alphonse Mucha, and others. These photos show some of the designs in the book. They aren't really great pictures as I don't own most of the pieces anymore so had to scan in old snapshots. The book is out of print now, but used copies can usually be found by Googling the title. Frequently a copy shows up on eBay or Amazon.

Double Up

Finally! I completed the pre-work for Ro Pace's pilot class for Double Up, the other class she is teaching at the ANG Seminar this fall. This piece is a real challenge as I opted for Congress Cloth in order to keep the overall size manageable. I haven't worked on anything smaller than 18-count for quite awhile and it took my poor old eyes some time to adjust!

Ro allowed me to change the colors, so mine is going to look quite a bit different than the model (which is shown above). The Congress Cloth I am using is kind of a taupe-y color, which is more accurately rendered in the scan of the detail. The photo I took of the whole piece came out pretty dark. The triangles are Kreinik braid couched with one strand of silk. The rest of the prework stitching is in pearl cotton.

Needlepoint Now

We were gone over the weekend and I'm just trying to get back to "normal" LOL. I didn't get any stitching done over the weekend so I don't have any pictures to post. Now I'm playing catch up. I have to get the prework finished for Ro Pace's next pilot class which is this coming weekend!

The new issue of Needlepoint Now has been mailed, so if you haven't received yours yet, it should be arriving any day. The second installment of my Bargello series is in this issue. This chapter is on 4-way Bargello. There were a couple of errors in the article and the corrections are: 1)The most desirable size for this project is a square that is 5-7" on a side; and 2)Begin stitching with the darkest shade of your main color OR with your constrasting color.

If you are working this project and have any problems or questions, please contact me at lizboatay@hotmail.com. I did receive one email already and I hope whoever it was from sees this post! I accidentally deleted the email before I could answer it and can't recover it.

Catalina Tiles

When I went on that cruise a few weeks ago, we spent a day in Avalon, Catalina. Many of the women in our group were interested in Catalina Tiles. It turns out that in the 20s and 30s, beautiful unique ceramic tiles were made on the island. There are now several companies that are reproducing these tiles and several of our group bought tiles to take home.


When I saw the tiles, I thought: Needlepoint Design. In a coffee & gift shop, I found some note cards with pictures of tiles on them. So I bought a bunch of them with the idea of doing a needlepoint design. I have made some progress. I have all of the tiles charted, but only one has been thoroughly "adapted". I have a lot of work left to do to make these "mine". I have found some websites about the tiles, so I will be attempting to stay true to the original designs while changing them so they are not "copies". This is what I have so far:

SOTM Section 2

Yesterday I completed Section 2 of ANGs Stitch of the Month project. Since I changed the design and charted it, I had to do some serious counting to get from Section 1 to Section 2. I ended up "counting" with a basting thread to be sure I got it right! I used DMC floss #523 and #12 Kreinik 4003. It is a pretty stitch and I can see how different combinations of threads could give a totally different look.

Check out Pin Tangle's post for today! She is beginning an extensive list of blogs and it is just amazing. I used up all morning with it!!!

Progress Reports, March

Wow, it is hard to believe that it is March already! True to it's reputation, it is quite windy today! We returned from Reno last night so today I am playing catch up!


The day we left for Reno, I completed Whisper. I am very pleased with the way it turned out. I added an extra row of the diagoal lines in the corners, as I felt there was too much empty space there. Next, to the framers!




This picture was given to me for Xmas by a friend. She stitched it in all of my favorite colors. What a treat! When I tried to figure out where to hang it, I decided it needed a companion piece. So this weekend I made a start on that. It is "Atrium" from Rainbow Gallery, and of course I changed all the threads & colors! Progress so far is quick & pleasing.