Filed under: ANG Stitch of the Month Mystery Project
We’re only 4 months into the project & there is so much done already. This month’s stitch doesn’t come across as much as a heart as the diagram showed it to be – maybe because my thread is black & too thick. But, it still looks nice.
Filed under: Butterfly Baskets
This is the sixth & last of the Butterfly Basket series & is a “Pinsations” original design & stitch selection. The pin is added to the piece so that the pin can be removed, worn, & replaced.
The flowers are a combination of Colonial Knot + Lazy Daisy + Straight Stitch + French Knots + Stem Stitch. The basket is probably something I made up to be like the Spider Web stitch only with vertical spokes for the basket & a circular portion for the rim. And, I do not go back under one rather I did an over under & pushed tight together. It used a lot of thread.
This basket was modeled after a basket that was my grandmothers, Mae (yes, that’s her in the picture). It is a woven wicker basket with a glass insert to hold flowers (I took them out so you could see the basket). I didn’t quite get the slope to the rim that I wanted. But, I haven’t figured out what would work better – perhaps someday I’ll try again. I’m not sure why I switched off the brown except that I liked that overdyed thread with the flowers.
Books used:
- Stitches To Go by Suzanne Howren and Beth Robertson.
- The Needlepoint Book by Jo Ippolito Christensen.
- from Elegant Stitches by Judith Baker Montano (a dozen pages are dedicated to combination stitches).
Filed under: Butterfly Baskets
This is the fifth of the Butterfly Basket series & is a “Pinsations” original design & stitch selection. The pin is added to the piece so that the pin can be removed, worn, & replaced.
The darker yellow flowers are Rambler Rose and the lighter yellow flowers are a combination of Lazy Daisy + French Knots. The basket is Tied Gobelin. The stem is Fern with variations in length for curves. I still used several shades of brown DMC floche to get some depth to the basket. For the edging around the basket, I used 2 rows of Wheat Stitch.
Books used:
- Stitches To Go by Suzanne Howren and Beth Robertson.
- The Needlepoint Book by Jo Ippolito Christensen.
- from Elegant Stitches by Judith Baker Montano (a dozen pages are dedicated to combination stitches).
Filed under: Butterfly Baskets
This is the fourth of the Butterfly Basket series & is a “Pinsations” original design & stitch selection. The pin is added to the piece so that the pin can be removed, worn, & replaced.
The flowers may be double layered cross. The basket is Criss-Cross Hungarian (same as Basket 1). I really like that stitch for the weave you expect to see in a basket & for shading although I used different threads (mix of DMC floche & a Vineyard Silk). Not sure about the stem.
Books used:
- Stitches To Go by Suzanne Howren and Beth Robertson.
Filed under: Butterfly Baskets
This is the third of the Butterfly Basket series & is a “Pinsations” original design & stitch selection. The pin is added to the piece so that the pin can be removed, worn, & replaced.
I don’t know what I used for the flowers or the background – but I won’t repeat that selection. The basket is Alternating Cashmere with Tent. I like the little extra variation in the shading from just the alternating cashmere in this basket. It is subtle but when threads are placed in opposite directions, the light does reflect differently. I used several shades of brown DMC floche to get the effect of depth to the basket.
Books used:
- Stitches To Go by Suzanne Howren and Beth Robertson.
Filed under: Butterfly Baskets
This is the second of the Butterfly Basket series & is a “Pinsations” original design & stitch selection. The pin is added to the piece so that the pin can be removed, worn, & replaced.
The flowers are Milanese Pinwheel. The basket is Perspective. The stem is Ray. As in the first basket, I like the shading. I used a light and a dark brown boucle to get the layered effect. The butterfly picks up the yellow & brown.
Books used:
- The Needlepoint Book by Jo Ippolito Christensen.
Filed under: Butterfly Baskets
This is from my Butterfly Basket series & is a “Pinsations” original design & stitch selection. The pin is added to the piece so that the pin can be removed, worn, & replaced.
The flowers are Daisy. The basket is Criss-Cross Hungarian. The stem is Whipped Stitch. I especially like the shading in this basket. I used a thread blending technique with several shades of brown DMC floche to get an effect of some depth to the basket.
Books used:
- Stitches To Go by Suzanne Howren and Beth Robertson.
- The Needlepoint Book by Jo Ippolito Christensen.
- from Elegant Stitches by Judith Baker Montano.
Filed under: Dogwood Festival
As the Cherry Blossom Festival winds down in Washington, the Dogwood Festivals further south are about to begin. So, I present ‘Dogwoods in Springtime’. And, please forgive me if dogwoods only have 4 petals. I looked for a flower that had 5 white petals but decided dogwood is close enough for me! I have a few rose bushes out back – that’s all. I like looking at flowers but don’t need to know their names to enjoy them at the annual Philadelphia Flower Show or for the occassional trek to Longwood Gardens. If someone knows the name of the flower, please leave a comment.
This another example of a “Pinsations” original design & stitch selection. The pin is added to the piece so that the pin can be removed, worn, & replaced. Although for this one, Mary Ann, a co-worker, asked me to use 2 of her pins in the same design. I asked her how she thought the 2 pins related to each other & she saw the cat sitting under a tree. For me, the challenge was the relative size of the one pin to the other. A flower wouldn’t be bigger than a cat! So, I placed the tree in the forefront so the flowers would appear larger. And, I put the cat on a grassy slope well behind the tree so that the cat would appear farther away (& smaller). If you remove the cat pin, a stitched cat sits underneath. And, if you remove the dogwood pin, enough other stitches flowers remain.
This isn’t a large piece – about 6″x8″. I used overdyed thread for sky & tree trunk & overdyed boucle for grass. I started stitching that back & forth horizontally from the bottom up & realized that I was getting a streaky look which wasn’t thrilling me. So, I stayed with the same stitch but switched to more of a clumping of the dark area together to get the effect of clouds on the grass.
Mary Ann was very happy with the piece. I do like the people I work with! I’ve worked with most of them for about 15 years.
Filed under: Fishbowl
I thought why hide your favorite jewelry in a box when you can wear it and display it! To accomplish this, I incorporate pins into my needlework designs & have named them, “Pinsations”. The pin is added to the piece so that the pin can be removed, worn, & replaced. And, without the pin, it still looks like a finished needlepoint piece.
In this piece, the frog pin is one I’ve had since I was a child & the legs move. It’s not a large piece, about 6″x6″, & sits in a holder just like a fishbowl. I had to keep this piece – I just love it.
I used a variety of threads including DMC floss, DMC Cotton Perle #5, Kreinik, & Snow. I can’t find a list of stitches used although I recognize a darning pattern for the little fish on the top (in the air). The plant life looks like whipped running stitch & featherstitch. The water looks like whipped running with DMC Cotton Perle white as the base stitch placed horizontally but shifting row by row always one thread to the right to create the slope for movement & Snow whipped through it to get the shimmer effect.
As with the crosses, this was made on 14 count vinyl canvas. The canvas is available from www.crafterspride.com (under Fabrics). I cut an identically shaped 2nd piece, stitched my name & date on it, placed poster board placed between the 2 pieces to be rigid enough to stand without framing, and tacked them together, with small stitches along all sides using a vinyl thread.
Filed under: Crosses
These crosses were made for a dear lady, Marty, who helped take care of my mother for several years and for my niece, Molly, for her First Holy Communion.
For these, I was playing with saturation (intensity) within a hue (color) (another learning applied from Mary Shipp). I added embellishment in the form of charm or pin. I used the Triangle stitch for center portion & a Plaited Gobelin from Stitches To Go by Suzanne Howren & Beth Robertson.
They were made into wall hangings on 14 count vinyl canvas with DMC Perle #5. The canvas is available from www.crafterspride.com (under Fabrics). I cut an identically shaped 2nd piece, stitched my name & date on it, placed poster board placed between the 2 pieces to be rigid enough to hang without framing, and tacked them together, with small stitches along all sides using a vinyl thread.
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