Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, ANG Stitch of the Month, 2016
December’s portion of Susan Hoekstra’s Feuilles d’ananas (Pineapple Leaves) was lots of couching which was all finished yesterday.
Instead of coming in and out the center hole of the daisies to place a small Mill Hill glass bead (10106), I pierced the canvas thread on the left and right of the center hole on each one. I matched the thread to the Daisy (Needlepoint Inc Silk, Scarlet, 501A), used beeswax to strengthen the thread, and went through the bead twice to secure each bead. The beads laid consistently done in this manner and it worked up quicker than I expected. Well worth the extra effort. A Happy New Year indeed!
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to share my stitching adventures in 2016. And, thanks to designers such as Susan who share their designs at no charge. ANG Stitch of the Month (SOTM) is available to anyone with access to the Internet (needlepoint.org under the Education tab) even if you are not a member of ANG.
I am looking forward to 2017!! Hope you have a Healthy, Happy New Year too.
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, ANG Stitch of the Month, 2016
November’s portion of Susan Hoekstra’s Feuilles d’ananas (Pineapple Leaves) are giant diagonal mosaic stitches alternating with small mosaic stitches. Again, I centeted the giant mosaic to start. This worked up quickly.
I can tell we’ll have a lot of couching Kreinik next month. Plus, there are beads to add.
Filed under: ANG Stitch of the Month, 2016
October’s portion of Susan Hoekstra’s Feuilles d’ananas (Pineapple Leaves) are Daisy eyelets, upright satin, herringbone, and more Daisy eyelets. In fact, I have 136 eyelets!
I centered the eyelet in the middle rather than starting with a complete full unit on the left. There has to be a symmetrical arrangement to please my eye!
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, ANG Stitch of the Month, 2016
September’s portion of Susan Hoekstra’s Feuilles d’ananas (Pineapple Leaves) is the Nobuko. It’s a great stitch and easy to compensate once you get the pattern established.
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, ANG Stitch of the Month, 2016
August’s portion of Susan Hoekstra’s Feuilles d’ananas (Pineapple Leaves) are the Brighton and Thread Couched with Crosses. It’s always interesting to see composite stitches come together.
July’s portion of Susan Hoekstra’s Feuilles d’ananas (Pineapple Leaves) are Triangles. Coming along nicely.
June’s portion of Susan Hoekstra’s Feuilles d’ananas (Pineapple Leaves) is the Giant Brick Stitch.
I decided to compensate over 5 canvas threads instead of stitching twice over a single canvas thread.
All caught up through May on Susan Hoekstra’s Feuilles d’ananas (Pineapple Leaves). What fun it was to stitch on 18-count canvas after a month working on 24-count Congress cloth (for a pilot class that I can’t share yet). The holes look huge!
Filed under: ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, ANG Stitch of the Month, 2016, New Jersey Needle Festival
Great weekend! Buff & I headed for Beyond Knits & Needles in Caldwell, NJ on Friday morning. I got some threads & Buff found a canvas. Wonderful store. Anne Marie is very nice and has friendly, helpful customers (Jane). Love the selection of canvases & threads. Incredible light in each of the 3 rooms.
And, then we headed to Edwardian Needle for more threads & EdMar needles (me) and another canvas & threads (Buff).
A fantastic dinner and conversation with Buff, Brenda, Ginny, Rona, and Rosie at the Red Oak Grille. It would have been nice if Linda had made the trip too.
After a good night’s sleep, we headed to the New Jersey Needle Festival (my 4th time I think). It’s so much fun to see everyone & what they are stitching. I think a dozen of us are working on Susan Hoekstra’s Stitch of the Month, Feuilles d’ananas.
We had a great group at our table! Sitting/standing left to right: Sylvia, Rona, Melita, Brenda, Lori & Ginny, Buff, Margaret.
And, the vendors saw robust sales! I found an eyeglass / cell phone case made by Trish Vine & Karen from Nimble Needle had the lamp I wanted. The cute bag from Susan was too cute to pass up.
Although I didn’t finish April’s portion of the design at NJNF, it was done before I went to bed Saturday night!
Melitastitches4fun's Blog 
Filed under: ANG Keystone Garden Chapter, ANG Main Line Stitchers Chapter, ANG Stitch of the Month, 2016, General comments, Woodlawn Needlework Exhibition, Zentangle
Another cold March but the nor’easters decided to give us a couple of sunny, nice days. So, Bill & I did get to Woodlawn this year. We also stopped at a huge magic store outside Baltimore and saw Tony Kornheiser record his sport talk pod cast in Washington (2 of my husband’s favorite things, magic and watching/listening to sports).
Woodlawn had fewer judged pieces this year (407 listed in the handout; numbering starts at 100 and ends at 660 but large blocks of numbers were skipped in between). However, there are 2 special display rooms. One is Japanese Needlework from students of Antonia Evans. Other businesses shown below were also sponsors of the exhibit. They do beautiful work. Oops, there was a sign saying no photography in the Japanese room (so, I removed them from my blog).
And, there were a variety of wonderful pieces from the family of Mary Duckworth, once a longstanding member of Nelly’s Needler’s.
As usual, there were some great entries from all over the country. Winners of ribbons are listed on the website now too at: http://www.woodlawnpopeleighey.org/annualneedleworkshow/ . And, that brings me to my review of select pieces. I will comment mostly in order by entry number (in parens). And, if the entrant is a designer that I know has his/her first & last name on the web or is listed as an award winner on Woodlawn’s website, I’ll cite both; otherwise, I cite full first name and last name initial letter only. I didn’t get photos of other people’s pieces. Docents there today said just photograph your own piece. But, I didn’t think that included the special exhibits as no docents were in those rooms.
Catherine Hicks had amazing original embroidery with stumpwork pieces including a likeness of Diego Rivera’s Frida and Salvadore Dali with a handlebar moustache done in stumpwork (100-103; multiple awards including a Judges Choice Award).
I do like seeing pieces from designers I know like Jennifer Reifenberg’s Colorplay done by Patricia Tector (112; HonorableMention), Catherine Jordan’s original map of Florida celebrating 500 years since Ponce de Leon landed there (135; 3rd place), Long Dog’s ‘Death By Cross’ with 363 x 447 cross stitches over 1 thread on 52/60 count linen done by John Kazmaier (157; Pope-Leighey Award, 1st Place) in a reddish brown color, Deborah Merrick-Wilson displayed 10 stunning pieces either goldwork or canvaswork original designs (227-236; multiple awards including 1sr, 2nd, 3rd, Honorable Mention, and Eleanor Custis Lewis Award for Best in Show), a large version of Drawn Threads Forest designed by Catherine Jordan and stitched beautifully by Margareta MacGregor (305; Judges Award, 2nd Place), Imari Collage designed by Debbie Stiehler stitched by Rosie Lunde (418; 3rd Place) and by Donna LaBranche (507; 3rd Place), and Come Dance With Me designed by Orna Willis and stitched by Maria B (469; no ribbon but well done and this a piece that I stitched too).
Some other pieces that really caught my eye because they were stunning or amazing or both: Susan Baldassano’s fish on gauze (237; Honorable Mention), 2 large coy fish with 32,000 beads stitched by Katherine Ludlow Callahan (489; 2nd Place), Shirley Hutton’s large ribbon embroidery piece won 4 awards including
,
,
, and
(503; she’s a member of my new EGA chapter and was at Woodlawn the same day as Bill and I); 9 fuchsia ribbon flowers on a muted background of stitches reminding me of a trellis stitched by Shirley Mucha (554; 2nd Place), Mary Vantyne used 324,025 cross stitches to depict Napoleon Bonaparte sitting on top of a horse that looked like a photograph (565; Honorable Mention), and an original design with lots of flowers using surface/Brazilian embroidery stitches by Karen Maier (Woodlawn award and 1st Place).
My red pillow designed by Susan Hoekstra for ANG’s Stitch of the Month in 2016 was in the Christmas room (415; no ribbon but a docent said she heard people complimenting it). And, there were 5 other framed SOTM pieces in various colors including yellow, gold, blue, and 2 greens. The centers were different in at least 2 of them including a beautiful beaded flower (600; Mary V) and another with a stumpwork flower (602; Mary W). It would have been nice to see them in the same room.
And, my original design is a Zentangle piece that I drew first and then interpreted in threads (416; Honorable Mention).
Drawing:
Another inspiring exhibit! Thanks to everyone who contributed.
Stitched: