Stitching Up a Storm in Alamo City

Surprise in Needlepoint Now

If you got this magazine in the mail, open it to page 24, where Judy Harper has an article about Raymond Crawford and his needlepoint designs.   

And if you look at page 25, you'll see a picture of Maddie's tree.   Judy watched me stitch the piece through my blog and asked if she could use a picture of it in her article.   OF COURSE!!

Then when Raymond Crawford saw it, he asked if I would write a stitch guide for it.   OF COURSE!!   (Not realizing how hard that is to do when you do it after the fact.) 

Enjoy!

(I also stitched the LOVE canvas, but the one in the article is not my work.)

Raymond Crawford tree is framed

I picked up the tree at the frame shop today.   I love how it turned out.  Sorry my photography isn't so hot -- it was hard to get a decent picture without having my reflection in the glass!!

I'm going to Indiana on Thursday to visit Miss Maddie B. (and her parents), so I'll carry it on the plane with me.

Happy Saturday.

Maddie's tree is finished!!

It's done!!  Can you believe it?

As promised, I tent stitched with Kreinik 321J where the squigglies are at the top, and then stretched out some pearl purl #2 metal and couched it down.  I really like the effect.  For the base of the tree, I freehanded it -- trying to give it a bit of weight without padding it.  My original thought was to use some gold hex beads that I have, but they weren't the right color of gold.  (Matching is important, you know!!) So I used the same 321J for the base.   I think it turned out just fine.

Today the July Santa arrived from The Needle Nook of La Jolla -- along with the beads I ordered for the roses and lilacs on the May Santa.   I think this means I'm officially 2 1/2 Santas BEHIND!!

So it's more stitching and less blogging for me today.

Happy Thursday!

Jane

More on the tree

By gosh, I think I've GOT IT!!  I have finally found something that I like for the scrollies!!  I couched #16 braid (using #4 of the same color) and I LIKE it!!

I also couched a bit more gold on the tree, and I'm closing in fast!!

When I took the Brenda Hart class in January, she talked about the technique of stretching gold so that it's pretty spiral-y and couching it to get a different effect.   I think I may try that on the top squigglies -- I'll probably tent some similar colored Kreinik first and then do the couching.    Brenda suggested I do that for something on the nutcrackers and I think it might be fun here, too.

The only thing I haven't totally decided on is what to do with the base of the tree.  I may pad it and satin stitch it -- or couch it -- or who knows?

DH is playing golf today and I have only a few things that MUST be done.  Surely between today and tomorrow and I can finish this off.

Happy Stitching, friends!!

Back to the tree

Since I'm waiting for the beads for the May Santa from Needle Nook, I picked up the tree again.  I finished the beading at the top and started couching the gold down.  I see I have something funky going on with the green beads at the top.   I'll need to take a look at that.  Also, I ran out of couching thread last night so the left end on one of the gold lines is still hanging. 

Vicky at Needle Nook said yesterday that they're going to be sending out the July Santa this weekend -- I'm behind!!  I should have the rest of what I need for this tree by the first of the week, so hopefully I can get it finished fairly soon and then focus on the Santas.   

I think my strategy is to catch up on Santas and then start the 12 days of Christmas stockings again.  I sort of have in my head that it would be nice to have the Santas done as the particular month comes around.  It's been fun having the March Santa in the kitchen, and I have the April one to put out on Monday. 

Back to stitching!!