Finishing your needlepoint piece makes all the difference in the world. It really makes the piece your own! There are a number of beautiful finishing styles available. Consider which style best matches your own unique look.

Showering as an Easel Back Stand-Up

Showering in a tray

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Look at the difference in the  final look between these two pillows:

Hot Lips with Sassy Seahorse

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Similar needlepoint canvas, very different pillow finishing:

Island Spring with personal monogram

Island Summer with personal monogram

Here are some new finished pieces from the Blooms series by Elizabeth Bradley:

And another piece as a finished cube:

Each of these designs comes as a needlepoint kit with everything you need inside!

Just in time for summer, Pischke Pockets were one of the hottest things at the trade show in Columbus.

Needlepoint bags are always a great project, but many are a time commitment. The Pischke Pockets give you the best of both worlds. You simply stitch the needlepoint pocket (10″ x 10″ canvas on 10-count, so it flies!) and then attach it to your cotton tote.

The kit includes everything you need — canvas, threads, bag and finishing instructions. You can attach the pocket to the canvas tote yourself with the written finishing instructions included or by visiting the Artists’s website www.PischkePockets.com to watch the instructional video.

It’s a simple and fast project; we’re making some for ourselves and as gifts for friends. We have the full collection on our website & the Artist is already planning new designs for January!

We’re back from a very successful trade show & have lots to talk about!

For now, we’re all abuzz about a new artist called Candy Canvas. Her unique designs were quite a hit at the show & we wanted to show off her talents as soon as possible.

The canvases of Canvas Candy are a touch of the extraordinary. Coupled with matching glass ornaments, these canvases look so realistic, you want to reach out and touch them to see if you can actually eat the pickle on top!

These canvases come in a wide range of designs, including Oriental styles, edible treats, road signs, traditional Christmas ornaments and more. Keep an eye out — we’ll offer these new canvases online and in the store as soon as our order comes in from the trade show!

Until then, here’s a little test: Can you pick out which ones are the glass ornaments and which ones are the stitched pieces from the picture below?

Changing Thread Colors on a Canvas

I have just finished my Lee shoulder tote and love it! It is a great size with roomy pockets inside and outside of the bag.  I chose a Barbara Bergsten canvas and followed her stitch guide. Generally, we discourage people from making drastic color changes on a canvas.  It is easy to cover a pink with a red and a red with a purple, etc. However, when you change a canvas color entirely you risk having the background color show through.

That being said, I decided to “be brave” and stitch away.

I knew I wanted to match my colors with the khaki in the bag and I knew I wanted to use mostly wools. I switched the aqua color to a green and dropped the blue entirely from the original canvas.  It was a little mind-boggling when I was half-way through as it is hard to imagine the finished canvas when the original colors are still there.

Here are some of my tips:

1. Choose threads that are pliable and soft–I used Bella Lusso wool for most of the stitches and used extra strands where I wanted to “thicken” my thread.

2. Choose threads that tend to “plump”. Silk and Ivory is a great thread for 13 count canvases–I used “split pea” as my background color and it covered perfectly.

3. Don’t expect perfection and be willing to experiment–if you look really closely you can see some of the aqua canvas behind the “rice stitch” which is an open stitch. I could have chosen a less open stitch but decided to deal with the imperfection. Most people don’t look that closely since the purse is moving with me!