Filed under: Books No Longer in My Library
I am faced with an overload of books. I love books but my space is limited. I have books on needlepoint, embroidery, stitch patterns, design, drawing, color, fiber art, mosaic art, stained glass, samplers, and quilts – still not an exhaustive list! So, I will donate some that really do not have enough of interest in it to retain.
For several years now, I have contemplated how to record these in some manner so that I know what I have owned so I do not buy them again! I need it handy to pull up & be searchable. I have not gotten the hang of any of those doc storing websites. Since I want it when I am traveling and I have a cell phone with internet connection, I decided to enter it into my blog & the blog is searchable. These are in no particular order.
Crewel Embroidery by Erica Wilson is from the early 60s and the best design is on the cover. Very few color photos. The stitch diagrams I can get in other books.
Needleplay by Erica Wilson is from the 70s and is very colorful and big using more wool – not my taste.
African Needlepoint Designs by Diane Oliver Turner has very simple patterns and designs – very colorful.
Pleasures of Needlepoint by The Betty Crocker Home Library presents all projects as tent/basket weave but has no designs that are interesting.
Nature in Needlepoint by Eva Brent and Meg Merrill has black and white patterns with coded squares which doesn’t thrill me but I wouldn’t do these designs anyway.
America’s Best Cross-Stitch by Better Homes and Garden has good color pictures and charts but I don’t do much cross-stitch now & no design thrills me.
The Needlework Doctor by Mary Kay Davis has a fantastic question and answer format for “How to Solve Every Kind of Needlework Problem” but is dated (talks about 35 mm slides).
Needlecraft for Dummies covers a wide range of topics from getting started to finishing, stitches, various techniques, and some projects (none thrill me). But, it doesn’t cover anything that I can’t get out of other books.
The Needlepoint Book by Jo Ippolito Christensen from 1976 with 303 stitches, patterns & projects. While it it would be fun to keep as a historical reference, I have the more updated 2nd edition and will probably get her 3rd edition at some point (maybe electronically though).
An Introduction to Embroidery by Anna Griffiths has great examples of free embroidery, and modern blackwork but the canvas work section is disappointing. I have a duplicate of this that I am keeping.
Crewel Embroidery with texture and thread variations by Audrey Francini has detailed stitch diagrams, easy to follow patterns, instructions from start to finishing, & discussions on color and design. No design wows me & I have books that cover the other topics.
Decorating Baskets by Dawn Cusick has over 100 beautiful baskets and instructions on how to make them but I didn’t find enough baskets that had designs I liked to warrant keeping the book.
Watercolor Impressions by Magaret & Slusser has 74 watercolor-quilt impressions that utilize gradual movement from light to dark. They are fascinating but I do not see myself using this style in needlepoint pieces.
Small Scale Embroidery by Brenda Keyes has cross stitch, blackwork, goldwork, whitework, canvas work, beadwork, bargello, and assisi. There are some very cute designs but none I would actually stitch. However, I may place some of crochet or tatting in a needlepoint piece of mine as you see in the cover top center picture.
The Stitches of Creative Embroidery by Jacqueline Enthoven is the hard cover first issue from 1964 and I have the soft cover revised version that I am keeping.
Mosaics in Needlepoint by Xenia Ley Parker goes through the process of transforming designs into mosaics using line drawings and then shows about 2 dozen stitches to use. Again, the designs do not thrill me. So, there really was nothing new in the book that I need to keep it.
Cross-Stitch from a Country Garden from McCall’s Needlework & Crafts has over 90 projects including coasters, napkin rings, placemats, picture frame, and many more with excellent charts for counted cross stitch.
Embroidery from Better Homes and Gardens has 42 projects in a dozen techniques and presents good diagrams for basic embroidery stitches. It is an interesting collection of pieces with influences from across the world but nothing really appeals to me. Apparently, my tastes change over time but I did like this book enough to buy a second one! I really need this list.
Embroidery from French Chic uses 16 basic stitches and DMC floss on anything from t-shirts to tablecloths.
Round About Quilts by Michelle Watts uses wedges to form a circle and squares them off.
Needlepoint and Beyond by Edith Anderson Feisner has over 200 illustrations. She covers tools, stitches, designs, color, texture, shading, borders, needle weaving, appliqué, placing objects on canvases and more – in just 175 pages. I just prefer books with color.
Needlework Patterns by Susan Siegler adapts 24 textile pieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art into needlepoint. I just don’t care that much for the items she selected.
Book of Needlepoint Projects by Elaine Slater discusses working on a painted or blank canvas, tracing your own design, and working from graphs. The section for stitch diagrams breaks many stitches into so many steps that it spans as many as 4 pages with large diagrams and a lot of text to read.
Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts: Woolly Embroidery by Chronicle Books is an uniquely Japanese technique called Kyuuto – it has crewel, stump work, and some embroidery. On the back cover page, I finally learned that Kyuuto means cute. Some were cute but not cute enough to keep the book!
Embroidery Book by Mary Gostelow is a comprehensive reference book with stitch diagrams and 6 projects. I just do not care for the diagrams and covers topics I have in other books.
On the first Mother’s Day since her passing, I am honoring her memory by posting the violin my Mom, Rita, made for me many years ago. It is a large piece 23 & 1/2 wide by 29 high (excluding the 2 & 1/4 inch wide frame). Mom worked on that off and over a 3-year period! I played violin from grade school through my early 30s joining a local community orchestra when I moved to Philly. After it disbanded, I put it away & finally donated it to our home town music teacher to find it a home. Earlier this year, I enjoyed a wonderful visit with my home town violin teacher.
I still display the stitched violin in our living room & was surprised when my bother commented that he could not find it on my blog! I do not know how I missed that in my first year of blogging. But, it seemed best to wait until today to share this piece. I love how dimension is brought to the piece by use of the shading. It was done in continental stitch because I remember seeing how askew the canvas was when it was done. And, Mom saying that the framer had a difficult time stretching it to block it. It was a counted piece – nothing stamped. She had quite a time getting the music notes & the strings placed to her liking. But, the violin and music turned out great. Love, miss, & think of you often.
Filed under: ANG Seminar 2012
Although you must be registered for Seminar to attend the many classes that are offered, there are many events and venues that are opened to all ANG members and the general public. Many classes are still available & registration remains open until July 6, 2012.
The Seminar Exhibit is a collection of some of ANG’s most amazing stitched pieces. ANG Certified Judges will award the many “place” ribbons and the coveted Special Ribbons to the “best of the best”. You will also see on display the 2013 Seminar class pieces and the various classes offered through the Distance Learning Programs. Since ANG is celebrating its 40th Anniversary, you will see some of ANG’s history as told through past Seminar logos and other memorabilia.
The ANG Bookstore once again has Ruth Kern Books as the vendor. Find some of the most popular stitch books by some of the best teachers in the needlework industry. Shop for some of the “old” books no longer available or some of the newest stitch-related novels!
The ANG Shop welcomes Rittenhouse Needlepoint, of Philadelphia, as our 2012 shop vendor. Russell Palmer, Rittenhouse co-owner, promises to have a large variety of threads, canvases, and charted needlework on hand, including 5 trunk shows. You will also get to meet their in-house painter, finisher, and framer. Russell promises to make this a huge celebration in honor of ANG’s anniversary!
The Opportunity Baskets will have a large number of baskets filled with wonderful stitching merchandise donated by generous vendors and ANG members and chapters. You can purchase raffle tickets for $1 each and place the ticket in your favorite “wish I had that” basket. The winning tickets will be pulled at the Closing Banquet, but you do not have to be present to win! The tickets will be available for purchase throughout Seminar week.
Tuesday, Auction 28th, is Auction Day. The Silent Auction is open for viewing and bidding from 7:30am – 5:30pm. At the close of the Silent Auction, you can begin viewing the Live Auction items. The Live Auction begins at 7:00pm, with ANG’s favorite auctioneer, Randy Holford. This is always an exciting evening of bidding! Please remember you can only bid if you have a bidder number. Those will be available Monday evening, August 27 from 6:00-8:00pm and all day on Tuesday.
Teachers’ Showcase is Wednesday, August 29, from 7:00-8:00pm. Visit with many of ANG’s best teachers and get information about their teaching schedules and the many classes they have to offer to your chapters.
Yeah – I got the borders all stitched! Except for turning corners, it turned out fine. I must have restitched a few of them 6 times trying to get the reverse to work. If I got one right it was by accident. I finally gave up & moved on. The only thing that I can think was wrong was if I was stitching the rows left to right & I should have been going right to left. I’ll know & most you will know but the average person won’t. And, it’ll still open & close just fine.
Can you tell which is the right side & which is the wrong side? You can’t tell from the blackwork!
When you fold the edge you will leave a row of holes empty. That’s the best way I can describe it. And, this is the best picture I can get.
Maybe someone at our meeting will be able to show me what I was doing wrong. I expect I’ll do another Ort Box with 18 count at some point. I have some canvases left. About 12 of us ended up working on it. I missed last month’s meeting but I heard that at least one has applied the lining. And, she was helping another to understand the instructions. I’m anxious to see one of us finish a box! I bought the lining at a Jo-Ann’s Fabric Store. I got a red.
I had to make a trip for more Kreinik #4 braid 3228, a yellow gold with a hint of green for the single gold rows That uses a Van Dyke stitch over 1 and 4 threads. In between those rows are Alternating Mosaic using 2 strands of Gloriana #192, Peacock Blue which I am using a laying tool. It’s not may favorite thing to do but it looks sloppy if you don’t – even with just 2 threads. I love getting a section done! I think I’ll go back to the wings next. Alternate gold/green – Kreinik/Gloriana for variety.
In my mother’s attic, we found a couple of looms. One is Cynthia Easiweave Loom. It is in at least good if not excellent condition and I have the original instruction booklet & box. I don’t have the flat wooden needle but my brother thinks he can make one for me. I suppose the printing on the frame has decreased the value some. I saw a listing on eBay for $9.95 & it was in about the same condition but it had the wooden needle. Apparently, the frame can be expanded with additional units.
The wooden frame is a 6″ square & is stamped Cynthia Easiweave, Boston, Mass on the back. There is no copyright date & I can’t date it from a search of google. I love how the booklet tells that a coat made from 96 41/4″ x 41/4″ squares woven would have cost $2.40.
Missing needle:
As you may recall, not long ago I showed Sky 23 from Stitch Landscape by Little Shoppe Canvas Company. My one negative was that the diagrams do blur a tad when you open to the 2x size on iPad but not so horrible that you can’t look at it. Elaine from Little Shoppe Canvas Company commented that an upgrade was coming – it came.
But, when I went to upgrade on my iPad, I got a message that I needed iOS5 or greater to upgrade. Well, I’d just bought this iPad in Sept 2011, so back to the Apple store to find out what was going on. I found the oldest clerk in the store to help me. And, he was patient, helpful, & explained that I am supposed to plug the iPad into my computer & the upgrade will practically occur by itself. Yeah, sure. I was not optimistic but I went home to try. I never knew that I was supposed to plug this into the computer – you don’t get manuals any more!
Well, messages automatically came up all right – but it told me that in order to upgrade the iPad, I had to upgrade iTunes version to 10.2 or greater. You got to be kidding me! Can’t they ever just STOP upgrading I lamented to myself, knew “they” wouldn’t, & bit the bullet.
So, I bravely went to apple.com, looked at the support tab, & then downloads. Amazingly, I located the right thing & it worked!! It took hours to do it it’s thing – it must have needed a ton of updates because as little as I use iTunes, I recall ignoring those annoying pop-ups telling me an upgrade was available. But, this latest upgrade went much smoother. Maybe “they” are listening to us computer light weights & making it easy for us to stay in the game.
So, back to the iPad for its update & it worked as easy as the Apple clerk had said. Then, to the app updates on my iPad for Stitch Landscape & it worked!! And, the diagrams at 2X are clearer. I only wish the pictures showed the improvement because even though they weren’t bad before it was worth the effort!! So, thanks to Elaine for her update & Apple for making updates easier. And, I’ll probably still ignore updates until I am forced to download.
Before 
After 
I went to Rittenhouse Needlepoint to get more Arctic Rays (AR2) & Fuzzy Stuff (FZ15) but they were out of FZ15, a very bleached white. It was fortuitous because I prefer the more natural FZ26. And, they had an antique white (FZ27) with Fuzzy Stuff (AR3) that I think will be nice as the 2 background trees keeping the whitest one in the front center.
Here’s the first tree (center whiter one) from different angles so you can see the fluffy effect of the thread.
I like the pattern because it resembles branches going in different directions cathing the snow – it is Tree 16 from Stitch Landscape.
I got the blackwork finished & the bottom. I really had to focus doing the blackwork (Area 7 – top photo). I enjoyed it because it was a challenge but I wouldn’t choose to do a lot of it!
On the bottom square, I wish the overdyed thread on the one diagonal had some red & white in it. But, I didn’t notice that as I was stitching. I didn’t even notice it until I looked at the picture!
Now, I can remove the canvas from the frame, cut the squares apart, & stitch the edges down!
Last weekend, I found a SharonG canvas that will go perfectly as an insert to a black purse to carry with one of my winter coats which has 2 snapdragon pins. But, Karen at Nimble Needle offered me a discount on a returned stitch guide/threads packet for that canvas (subject of another blog another time!). So, I had to find another canvas that didn’t have a stitch guide to take to the canvas enhancement class today! That wasn’t too hard with so many pretty canvases!
Today (actually took me longer to write this up & it is technically now Sunday), I worked on a green/gold Dragon Fly canvas by Kathyrn Molineux for a Sudberry House wooden tea-tray. The pictures are showing the canvas more blue – I wish I could adjust that aspect. It is a 5×7 design area on 18 count. But, I’ll need to expand past that for the 5&3/4 x 9&3/4 area of the tea-tray. SharonG recommended a bamboo border to fill in which I won’t get to until last. Also, she recommended a gold Mylar or Lurex underneath to be reflective which I’ve never heard of that before-sounds facinating.
I met a nice bunch of fellow stitchers from all over NJ, PA, & MD. We talked Seminar classes – everyone is excited! And, we had a lovely lunch at The Bistro which was a short walk on a beautiful day. Quite a pleasure to finally meet SharonG! Hopefully, I’ll get her class, Anatomy of a Stitch Guide, at Seminar.
When I got home & looked at SharonG’s book Needlepoint SENSE (Simply Essential Needlepoint Stitch Explanations), I realized that the Alicia’s Lace that Sharon recommended for the gold wings on the Dragon Fly would let the gold of the canvas show more & allow the reflective layer to be effective. So, I ripped out the Alicia’s Lace Variation that I’d started on the wing because it covered too much canvas. I hadn’t done much & didn’t realize that they’d be so different. The hardest part about the Alicia’s Lace is starting and ending your thread so that it doesn’t cover the holes from the bottom. Here’s a picture but if you click on it you’ll see the white underneath the holes.
And, with the flash off, you can really see through the canvas. You can see where I am finishing off the threads on the left. I have to run a border thread around the wing & couch it anyway – so, it’ll be fine.
Back to front with flash for close-up. There is only one hole in upper left corner that is covered by a thread from the back in this picture.
The single gold rows are a Van Dyke stitch over 1 and 4 threads using Kreinik #4 braid 3228, a yellow gold with a hint of green. In between those rows are Alternating Mosaic using 2 strands of Gloriana #192, Peacock Blue (again that looks more green than here), a 12 strand hand-dyed silk. I was going to use Watercoulors or Waterlilies but Sharon likes open stitches to allow the painted canvas to show through. I never used Gloriana before-it’s nice.
I caught up to where I was at the end of class. You can sort of see the green along the bottom row in this picture.
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