Needle Painting Prep & Practice

A little bit of Needle Painting. Thankful to Mary Corbett for her pouring into the needle arts community month after month with beautiful, inspiring and creative embroidery. She shared this little pattern "Stitching Exercise for Needle Painting".

Choosing colors from what I have on hand. I may need to adjust my greens a bit, there is something not quite right. 

I used the prick'n pounce method of transfer with charcoal. Then traced it with a sepia pen. 

Mini Needle Painting *Feeding The Hens*

There are so many different ways to approach needle painting  a face. Especially one that is smaller than a thumbprint. Choosing color, stitch direction, and details are perplexing. So this is coming along slowly,very slowly for a quick project that is less than 4" x 4".

Photography brings out all the flaws. 

"Feeding the Hens" Vintage Mini Needle Painting

One of the cute portraits from Trish's new book "Miniature Needle Painting Embroidery. We shall see if I can do it justice.

Antique Watercolor Pansies

A little warm up exercise. 

Thank you Country Bumpkins publisher of Inspirations magazine , Mary Corbett of NeedlenThread , and Trish Burr for inspiration, designs and tutorials.  I can highly recommend all my stitching friends subscribe to Inspirations, subscribe to each of the blogs and get to know these lovely stitching friends. 

Miniature Needle Painting Embroidery- Vintage portraits, florals & birds by Trish Burr

I'm enjoying my copy of Trish's most recent book Miniature Needle Painting Embroidery. You can see a review  by Mary Corbett on Needlenthread and follow the link to order up your own copy. There is a pattern and instructions for a very pretty little needle book. Which reminds me there is a perfect ebook that just goes together well with miniature needle painting, Lavender Honey & Other Little Things. Trish Burr's Blog for more tips on needle painting and inspiration.

I anticipate many happy hours stitching. This is  "Watercolour Pansies" just a small warm-up. I'm looking forward to needlepointing "Feeding The Hens". 

Happy stitching!

SAL Mon Cahier de Broderie Hoja 3 Pagina 5 & 6 Finished

Continuing to learn more embroidery stitches. This is the third leaf, pages three and four of our embroidery notebook. It is a delight to accompany so many friends in a SAL and learn from each other, share our struggles, and resolve to do our best.

Stitches are: Straight, French knots, colonial Knots, Woven Running , Holbein, Granitos, Grids, and Grebiche.

Algerian Eyelets, Buttonhole eyelets, satin stitch eyelets, sorbello, Turkey knot, Peking, Long and Short, Point de Paris, Palestrina. Be sure to see the blog The Curious Frau. she has a great tutorial on how to make beautiful hand bound eyelets.

Instead of straight stitch, I put in Granitos for the flower petals.

Turkeywork 

There is a great tutorial on these two Eyelets here. See Mary Corbett's needlenthread for more explaination of buttonhole stitch.

Easter Design From Trish Burr

A Pretty miniature flower design for Easter. Or leave off the tag and turn it into a Happy Birthday note card. I'll be mounting mine on a Tea tin. The pattern is here.

Mounted on 1/8 inch acid free foam core board.

The fabric I will be framing it with.

It is miniature!  2 inches by 2 and a half inches.

Finishing & Signing a Project

To sign or not to sign. No signature leaves people guessing who, and others disappointed. Signing ones name to a piece of art that was someone else's design but your own interpretation, your own hours  of labor, leaves one feeling like part of it still belongs to them. Thus after a pep talk from a designer--I opted to sign discreetly.

Washed, pressed, pinned to mat board, and laced up.

You can find the 'how to prepare your embroidery for framing' on Mary Corbett's http://www.needlenthread.com/ 

Ready for the framer.

Dog Roses A Trish Burr design

A wedding gift.

New projects

A Tea cloth with a pomegranate designed by Mary Corbet and another needle painting designed by Trish Burr .