Welcome! I'm so glad that you, too, are interested in hand-done needlepoint (no machine-work, please!). I'm looking forward to sharing this passion with you.
How did I start? Eons ago,...More......I began with embroidery, and enjoyed it mightily, but life got in the way, and so I set it aside. Years later, by chance, I got a needlepoint kit (quinces) from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and I was hooked! Granted, it had been fun to use the different kinds of stitches available in embroidery, but being forced in needlepoint--which, for those of you new to needlepoint, uses one single simple stitch--to get various effects just by varying the colors was a challenge so fascinating that, many years later, I'm still having loads of fun designing and executing my own needlepoint art.
I use single threads of Paternayan yarn (no advertisement intended, and no sponsorship received for this ad...unfortunately!) and 18-point canvas. For those of you new to needlepoint, that means 18 holes to an inch of needlepoint canvas, a size that allows a good amount of detail where desired, without being too tedious when filling in the backgrounds. (Yes, I know it's possible to use even smaller yarns in the detailed areas, and larger yarns in the backgrounds, but I personally just don't like these jumps in size in the same image.) How long does this take? I find that the simple filling in of about 1" x 8" background (i.e., not counting carefully for detailed areas) takes me all evening.
For designing my projects, if not directly by hand, I use a marvelously flexible program called StitchPainter (no advertisement intended, and no sponsorship received for this ad...unfortunately!), which also allows the user to import photographs, and turn them into gridded designs.
In this non-commercial blog, I'll be turning my designs, photographs and works into images, which you can use, too, for your non-commercial purposes only, if you should like them. (Until further notice--and maybe forever--, all ads appearing on this blog are not of my doing, but come from Google itself...a small "price to pay" for getting the web space and blog modules for free!)
What is my approach to design, and what am I working on, now? I'll answer these questions in following posts!
Bye for now, Star
2 comments:
Its been forever since I have needlepointed and never have I desinged my own designs.Kudos to you. I have done lots of crocheting but now reading this makes me want to do another needlepoint!
your cousin b
In your parents' home, I've seen the beautiful needlepoint you did. It certainly doesn't look like a first attempt; you might enjoy doing more, and trying to design something (a golf-related theme?!). The "problem" is deciding on just what it is to be before doing it...a house can have only so many cushions!
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