Filed under: ANG Correspondence Courses, ANG CyberPointer's Chapter, Spirit of Jean by Kathy Rees | Tags: Spirit of Jean and Mae
Because we have the ANG CyberPointers meeting over Labor Day weekend & because I am anxious to get back to stitching Spirit of Jean, I am dedicating what stitching time I have this weekend to this piece. After reading the meeting reports Saturday morning, I finished the 4 diamond pavilions. Then, we enjoyed the afternoon at the Arden Fair & killer Golden Margaritas over dinner with our Delaware friends!
The members leading CPs certainly do a fine job. And, this is one of the Correspondence Courses they voted to do as a group.
Sunday morning I worked on the Smyrna stitches. I got to this point and realized that I had missed the inner ring of Smyrnas. So, I ripped & started restitching it Sunday. And, Monday, I got back to where I was!
I’m glad I had to redo it. I didn’t have enough of the thread for the diamond pavilions. So, I found a better match in my stash! And, I rethought my upcoming planned thread placement & made a couple of changes. The over dyed Watercolours was from Mae’s stash & the length was fantastic to match the pattern symmetrically. I found the center green & stitched outwards to all sides. I’m very happy!
Great weekend with friends & for stitching!
The eighth clue in the Stitching Games 2015 run by stitcherie is “apple”. Since I saw others already used the Issac Newton gravity connection, I decided to go with the other apple guy who, as it turns out, introduced apples to the state I now live in (PA). John Chapman, often called Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present day West Virginia.
The popular image is of Johnny Appleseed spreading apple seeds randomly, everywhere he went. With that in mind, like seeds falling randomly, I created a random stitch pattern for the sides. It’s not irregular continental, oblique beaty, or nobuko. The closest it comes to is Kennan but it is still different from any of the diagonal stitches in The Needlepoint Book by Jo Ippolito Christensen. I’m not going to check other books. Here’s the diagram:
And, the piece:
Filed under: General comments
It had been awhile since I was at Strawberry Sampler on Wilmington Pike (Route 202) in Glen Mills, PA. So, I had to show Linda! And, we both managed to find something we had to have.
I just loved the colors of this cross stitch piece, Baked Alaska, by Cheryl Granda. It is from a Mandala series of A-Maze-ing Desserts Collection. I am afraid to look for the others in the series!
They carry mostly samplers and cross stitch projects. Very nicely arranged, bright, and a huge stock. They carry DMC floss, Sampler Threads, and Weeks Dye Works Floss.
I finally made a trip to Needle Me to use my gift certificate from our Christmas exchange. I found a purse half off (& with the gift certificate was half off again). While the piece of needlepoint isn’t a perfect fit. It will be fine for a while.
And, look at what 40 yards of Watercolours looks like!
To thank members of the Board for our efforts, our President Patrick B, gave us laying tools that he made from an African porcupine quill. He added the decorative top bead. Some people are so creative & handy! Thanks again Patrick.
Filed under: ANG Keystone Garden Chapter, Fuchia Needlebook by Merrilyn Heazlewood
One of the projects from my second local ANG chapter, the Keystone Garden chapter, is a needlebook called “Fuchia Needlebook”. The designer is Merrilyn Heazlewood & this was published in Needlepoint Now Mar/April 2014. I’m happy with how it turned out! It’s a stem stitch connecting the pages mainly to the lining but I picked up enough from just below the lining that it doesn’t pull up the lining. This is going to be donated to ANG auction. I’m not sure it’ll be sent in time to make it into this years auction or next.
Filed under: ANG Correspondence Courses, ANG CyberPointer's Chapter, Spirit of Jean by Kathy Rees
The ANG CyberPointers chapter voted to offer Spirit of Jean by Kathy Rees, a current Correspondence Course, to our members & I signed up! Recently, I obtained some great stash from Mae V-D, a past member of my local chapter, Main Line Stitchers, who passed away. So, the basis of the colorway came from her threads. Plus, Mae is my middle name & my grandmother’s name!
You can see in the upper left side of the photo the Watercolours tag that has the color and lot number handwritten – now that’s old! And, I’m not sure what the overdyed floss is on the far left but it goes with the Watercolours perfectly. It is amazing that all the threads are over-dyes and makes it more challenging to select threads.
I met Ginny, another CP and member of my other local Keystone chapter who signed up too, at Fireside Stitchery the weekend that the instructions arrived in the mail (thanks Candy for all your work) to select our threads. But, I used some Weeks Dye Works with very little variation to get what I wanted. I was thinking how much easier it would have been to select the optional kit but I love these colors. It’s been very fun stitching although it requires very careful counting!!
The seventh part in the Stitching Games 2015 run by stitcherie offered two choices: (1) You can pick one of the clues (but not a technique), do the usual thing or (2) you can play tic-tac-toe!
From the combinations of clues and techniques that were available, I selected couching/laid filling, eyelet stitches, and Lima.
Since Lima is a coastal city in Peru, I stitched the east & west “coasts” of my piece in a couching/laid filling technique from parts of ANG’s Stitch of the Month in March 2005 to create a border. And, because there is a Lima in Ohio I decided to add a couching around each of the circles to represent the Os in OhiO. Lastly, half square eyelets (not sure what else to call them) fit into each corner.
Filed under: General comments
For future reference:
The sixth clue in the Stitching Games 2015 run by stitcherie is “lilliputian”. From Gulliver’s Travels, a race of very small people; also meaning very small. So, the smallest area left on my canvas is the other circle (the one on the right).
I created my own round Amadeus based on my learnings from my Jean Hilton books.
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