Bargello and Retreat Updates
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 11:43AM Thanksgiving at our house was all about the food or just relaxing in front of the television. Nothing fancy but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. It was just nice to have everyone together as we won't all be together for Christmas or New Years.
With Thanksgiving being late this year Christmas really is just around the corner! The first holiday luncheon is this Thursday and lots of holiday boutiques are scheduled for this weekend.....so it's time for me to get with it and bring out those holiday decorations.
I have had several requests for the Bargello/Beginning Needlepoint Instruction Book and will finally begin writing the instructions this week and plan to have it completed by early next week. In addition to making the directions half-size (5-1/2 X 8-1/2) instead of the normal page size, I am trying to decide on the final binding. I want these instructions to be very portable and compact.....for an easy take-along project. Anyway....look for it soon on the website.
This weekend I worked on the sketch for the mini project for the Stitchers Retreat. It will be only 3" X 6" and I plan to watercolor the canvas except for the bird and flower ground foliage, which will be the main stitched elements. The bird is an Avocet wearing its breeding colors. This is one of several shorebirds which are very familiar along the California coast from Monterey Bay to San Francisco.
My other stitching over this past week has been on next year's In Stitches column in NeedlePointer. As I have been doing so much research into tile and brick patterns for the Mediterranean Squares, I thought to begin an intermittent series on small tile patterns. Right now I am focusing on the design elements of the Mediterranean rim....which are very extensive....but later hope to expand to other areas. I am having a great time with these projects.
Needless to say I didn't get to my painting of the knitting yarn but that must happen next week as I begin work on the overall design. Nothing like an ironclad deadline to get one going.
No matter how busy it gets this month, it good to fit in some personal time. I've actually started an actual appointment of 2 hours personal time a week. Have a great week.
Mediterranean Squares Update II
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 04:22PM 
Well I've blocked in a few more squares of this new design. I do have a value sketch and my thread palette but it seems to work best for me to work back and forth, in different areas of the canvas, balancing the thread textures and colors as I proceed. That's why you see so many unfinished areas......I work just enough to feel fairly confident about the desired effect before I move on to the next area.
I've never talked about the scale of this design, but as shown it is about 9" square but I intend to add a border which will increase the overall size to 10" square.
I hate to put this project aside for awhile as it is really fun to work on but I need to work on my next year's columns in the ANG magazine Needle Pointers. Then there will be another delay while I begin my final proposal design for submittals in January. I have decided on the range of colors and have set aside a large bin which is fast filling up with threads of every description, including a knitting thread I plan to spritz with several Adirondack Colorwash.
So, I'll be back soon, hopefully with some fun photos to post of an afternoon's experiments with paint and thread.
Happy Thanksgiving!
STITCHERS RETREAT
Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 11:59AM Claire and I are excited to announce the details of our next
This time around we've decided to have the same format but I will be designing a mini project as optional stitching. It's happening in Los Gatos (San Francisco Bay Area) on February 27th through March 1st, 2009, so be sure to view our Retreat Page for more details.
The first day of the Safari Pilot was Thursday and was a fun day in a beautiful setting. The second and final class is this Thursday so I've been busy doing minor revisions to the instruction book before shipping off the kits to my ghost pilot stitchers. I was very excited to finally receive a thread shipment I had been waiting on since September 17th...from England. We think the first package is still probably languishing in customs somewhere but Stef Francis was great and sent a replacement package and this one arrive in 8 days. This package included the very last thread needed to complete Safari! Whew!
I've still been stitching most evenings this week on Mediterranean Squares and plan to post an update in two or three days. It's been a real study of how colors advance and recede and how to use texture to create depth. More to follow.
Now I must return to marking canvases to ship. Wishing all a great rest of the weekend!
