Judy is very ill.

Judy is in Hospital and very ill. More details will be posted here or at her main website.. www.elegantwhimsies.com

My name is Steve Watkins and I am a friend and long time webmaster for Judy. Her family has asked me to help out with the internet aspects of Judy's life. I have limited access to these blogs and may not be able to update this post. We will try to keep this blog updated but due to our limited access that may become a problem.

I do have unlimited access to her main website and will be able to post updates on her condition there, if this blog becomes unavailable to us. Please check both places for information.
For people with outstanding orders please contact me at steve@starnetservices.com and I will do the best I can to help you...

Steve Watkins

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This is a test....

Decorating the Topiary (with Kreinik)

Looking back on the blog posts here, I see that I've been playing with this thing since December 24! I'm still playing, but it's beginning to be interesting now.

An experiment, it is - but I'm learning the variables of working with the Kreinik on it as I embellish. Be sure to go to Freebies, etc. to see the new metallic "Hot Wire" that Kreinik now has - a new thing. I found it just when I needed it for embellishment trials here.

Anyway - back to the decorating. For the lower swag, I used #12 Holographic 002, and it's quite showy in the "heavy chain" I found at PINTANGLE in Sharon B's stitch dictionary.

Incidentally, I don't remember if I've shown this picture before or not - the arrows are pointing to my mistakes in not stitch counting symmetrically on these two swags. They are supposed to look horizontal when the tree is made into a cone, but they should have been perfectly centered - like the bottom. So far, I've hidden this effect with a generic sillk ribbon flower.

Also, I was able, since stitch drawing that bottom swag symmetrically, I was able to do the chain stitch without tent stitching the line first - much easier, and of course less time consuming.

I realize I seem to be jumping around a bit here, but this is how I've developed it so far - just a little at a time to try out special effects.

The Feather Stitch put down first makes a great background - pretty but understated - for whatever decides to come next. This, too, is on Pintangle in the Stitch Dictionary.
















I made this bottom shot with a bit of sunlight on it, as it was suppose to show the Holographic heavy chain - it's beautiful in person. The Feather Stitches Kreinik 002 #4 braid) were deliberately made to be irregular, but basically as perpindicular as possible to the chain so that they will be positioned correctly when the tree is made into a cone.

Recently, I saw somewhere a charming little ornament frame made with twisted DMC Memory Thread - so had to try it with the Kreinik metallic. It was more difficult to twist, due to the texture of the metallic covering, but I did find a splendid use for it - little candly canes! Here is a picture of a short length of it twisted as cording - you can see this on the other blog, as well as a candy cane (peppermint) made of three cords.
This is how it looks at the top now - I'll let it rest for a day or two.

Festival of Needles

This is something I haven't participated in, myself, but looking at PINTANGLE this morning, I saw that Sharon B. has a great post on it, and includes a link to a Stitchin' Fingers site by Carole Anne about it that she recommends highly. Do go see!

Remembering Madeline

She would have been 16 today, and oh what plans we had for when she could drive a car! I won't dwell on what would have been or might have been - like digging for fossils at Jackson Hole, and taking our needlwork with us - but will continue to be grateful for the 13 years of bright and beautiful memories she gave me to carry in my heart.

The little rocking chair is the first thing I painted for her so long ago - she wasn't even walking yet. Her daddy bought the unpainted chair, and Granny decorated it. I took this picture with her Pooh, as she wouldn't stay still enough for me to get a shot with her sitting in it. Lots of smiles back then.

At this point, I am thinking about and grateful for the wonderful kind of life she had. The colors and gaiety of the rocking chair have the feeling! Madeline had the important things, and for that we are all eternally grateful. Along with beauty and intelligence, she had parents who loved her dearly, and loved and liked each other - and a little sister whom she alternately adored and detested.

She had kind of kooky (me) but very highly productive grandparents with whom I spent a lot of wonderful time - an added bonus. The other grandmother was a curator at the Kimball Museum in Ft. Worth, and the grandfather taught Russian history and civilization (and language) at TCU.

There were lots of aunts and uncles, too, who thought she was wonderful, and who added to her life significantly - things like kayaking, growing fields of lavendar and making soap, and enjoying fine science fiction.

She was blessed with material things also, and parents who were wise enough not to let her be spoiled and obnoxious.

Painting Monet - More Buried Treasure

I found more photographs while dumping out ancient files - these were dated 1996, so were taken long before I had either a digital camera or a computer. There are even shadows at the top right of this one, as I had taken it outdoors for good light.

I painted this for myself (copyright thing, etc. so I never marketed it), just to see if I could do it. It isn't the prettiest canvas I ever painted, but I will say it was the greatest challenge, the most difficult, and I thoroughly enjoyed it - and achieved what I wanted to do.

Being always mindful of painting to make the stitching easy and relaxing, I wanted to anchor the lily pads as they float on the water, but yet give the water depth and show the reflection of the trees.
The lilies and their pads appear very colorful, but if you look at the close-up, you can see that there are actually very few colors, and those are painted simply for easy stitching.

The colors used are just "generic" enough that one could choose any of several ranges of the hues used. One would not have to stick absolutely to the color on the canvas.

The second detail shows the reflected trees with the lily pads floating on the surface of the water. This was the most difficult effect I've ever worked out. The trees had to be easy to stitch - but still kind of fuzzy like a reflection.

The water is smeared looking only because I was going to do it myself, and just wanted to cover the canvas. If it were a commercial canvas, I would have smoothed out the paint so it would look nicer in a shop. There was a second canvas - a pink one - that disappeared.

Monet painted these water lily pieces in several different colors - even green. This flower pot was inspired by one of the green paintings.

When I was first back in Austin, I still wasn't painting needlepoint canvases again yet, but started doing decorative accessories for Breed and Co. here and also the National Wildflower Research Center (Now Lady Bird's Research Center).

For Breed's I did a series of French Impressionist pots, including the saucers, which could be lids for enclosing a gift or candies or something of that nature. I used those little cheap bottles of acrylic paint - the Folk Art or Apple, made by Plaid Enterprises - great paint. It doesn't require a sealer, and I have pots that I painted many years ago that have been outside with plants in them - and they still look fresh.


These were really fun, and very fast to produce, as they were done almost totally with natural sponges, and just smeared onto the pot. The little lilies were put there quickly with a worn out paint brush - just brush strokes.

The next pot is from the painting of "Monet's Roses." It was extremely simple - done all with a wet sponge except for the little roses. Those are just dabbed on with an old soft brush.



















Then another water lilies design adapted to a terra cotta flower pot. These are just the simple clay pots you can get at your garden center. Incidentally, if you want to try this yourself, do NOT use the tube acrylics, as they dry with a plastic finish, and water will seep through the walls of the pot and cause blisters and paint peeling off. The bottled paint seems to breathe with the clay, so gives no trouble. Enough is enough for tonight. It's time for tea and a good movie.

This last pot, I'm ashamed to say, is a mystery, as I cannot remember who the painter was. I'm inclined to say it's from Cezanne, as his style with the outlined fruit says so. However, Van Gogh's style also shows in the blue pitcher and flowers. Oh well. The arrow is pointing to a place that is a white paint mark - not something shiny.

Oops! One more. This last one is one of my very favorites of the Van Gogh paintings - his "Flowering Almond Branch."

Learning/Practicing/Creating Needlepoint on Simple Shapes

I'm still working on the conical topiary trees, and also on the Bavarian lace - but as a lot of background is required, and both pieces are green, I have to take a break.

This subject is a result of two things: First, I have been cruising around on the internet looking at painted canvases, and cannot believe some of the things I see. There are pieces that are so simple that anyone could put them onto canvas, and at rather outrageous prices, I think.

As a designer of painted canvas for so many years, I do know why fine HP Canvases are very expensive - but people need to know that they can do their own simpler small pieces if they are shown how. I used to love teaching this. Actually, most of them don't even need to be painted!




















The houndstooth check piece is one I did while experimenting with effects with mosaic stitch - and making my own houndstooth larger from the simple little count I developed for it. No paint required here, but just the symmetric outline of the heart drawn onto the canvas. I usually don't paint my ornaments of this sort- it's just not necessary.

Naturally, getting out these patterns (showing on the side bar as e-patterns to buy and download yourself) sent me spinning off in yet another direction: I thought of painting a bare canvas drawn in a shape- probably a circle or a heart - and doing some "scant coverage" things on it, after painting/smearing with a natural sponge in an abstract pattern..

I had to go dig out my collection of sponges from my pottery making for this, so the rest of the story waits (for success or failure). Liz Morrow is who told me about this technique.

If it emerges as I "see" it in my head, it will be great. If not, Oh Well. I normally do not like scant coverage, but in this case it has some possibilies. Now I'm off to find a movie to watch and more green stitching on the tree, and then some lace drawing.

I'm showing here several of my "cookie cutter" ornaments - something I developed a number of years ago when I was experimenting with different fibers, stitches, and techniques, and tired of wasting time and canvas with just scraps. At least this way, I had something I could finish and use later - and they are small, bright, and entertaining, and they don't take long to stitch. A great relief in among larger projects.

Bavarian Lace in Needlepoint (hopefully)

Embarking on a new quest for knowledge, and I'm afraid gone a bit too far, as usual.

When I first decided to do the "ethnic" dolls in their national costumes, I noticed the beautiful lace insets on the aprons and sleeves of the German dirndl.

To back up a bit, I began replicating lace many years ago in needlepoint, but my facination was the Irish crocheted lace, as I had crocheted many pieces of it myself, so understood the construction. I especially enjoyed doing "filet lace," as you can see here in the top two pieces, in which a netting is worked with fillers in the "bump" stitches to create a pattern.

Bavarian lace is a bobbin lace, constructed down flat on a pillow, which produces a netting that is flled in with various patterns, but lies flat rather than having the "bobbles." I was amazed at the variation of the netting in the different regional laces, and that of different countries, and wanted to be careful not to make it look like the crocheted lace in my needlepoint things.

One of them has the same netting as filet lace, and others range from six to eight sided openings. So - my first chore has been to figure out how to replicate this fine netting on needlepoint canvas, which is an even weave scrim, and then to fill in a simple pattern - without making it look like crocheted lace.

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who know a lot more about this lace thing than I do, as the construction of real lace has not been one of my studies over the years.

Anyway, what I finally devised as a netting has four pointers to show a fast and easy way to draw it onto canvas without having to count - or even to think, in this situation. That was a total struggle in the beginning, and I made some pretty awful mistakes with it. The canvas that looks like ladders is to show the quickest way to do this without having to count anything.

Next was the task of filling in a pattern of some sort to see if I could stitch it.











This is drawn with the light blue Sharpie drawing pen, as I intended to stitch it in white with a dark green "fabric" showing through. I like the second one best, as it shows "netting," which is the most difficult part of developing this thing. I have to keep reminding myself that's it's only to be a little band of lace on a small apron, but I enjoy the designing process and figuring it out. Oh well.


There are several mistakes here, as I was trying out different things - and the pointer shows where I decided I could make a scalloped edging by leaving out the two little stitches in that space.

Now I need to design an actual pattern to use, and although I never design on graph paper, I decided it would be easiest on this to have something on paper for doodling.




















I enlarged the drawing on canvas, (150%) printed out several paper copies, and that will be my practice page. Canvas is on the left, paper copy is on the right.

ADDENDUM: I used DMC cotton floss # 3865, which I like very much, as it isn't so bright white as the Blanc, and it lies nice and flat. The background is Vineyard Silk - "Holly" as I remember. (lost the tag) I tried perle cotton for the lace, but it was pretty awful looking for this due to the twist.

The Music and Ballet Continue!

For any who have missed some of these delightful renditions of the characters from The Nutcracker Suite ballet - be sure to look at Anne Stradal's blog, The Cape Stitcher, often, as her little dancers are the best that have been done. They have amazing movement and personality as well as excellent choices of stitches to enhance them.

This is a picture of the Sugar Plum Fairy, who is my own personal favorite, as is her music. She is completed, and the stitching is shown step by step in the blog posts.

Today is the beginning of "Chocolate," which should be most entertaining - a duo of characters dancing, dressed in costumes with more than a hint of the Spanish influence. If you aren't already following, this one will be great entertainment.

Another Site for Great Images and Color!

Before I get excited again and can't remember the name of the artist and the quilt - this is Laura Wasilowski of Illinois at the Houston Quilt Show, where she says she was a "woman packing iron." The quilt is named "Pressing Matters."

I found the site by total accident, and have spent several hours over a few days looking at things - there is a blog as well as a delightful web page.

This is an art quilt technique in which the fabric patches are cut and then fused onto a background, rather than sewn as they usually are. Then stitching embellishments follow.

Laura's graphics are delightful and colorful, and the text had me LOL in several places - especially the part about the Chicago School of Fusing. Her style ranges from whimsical to rather sophisticated and abstract.

Be sure to click on all of the "departments" on the front page of the web page - the "stitch-u-structions" is equally delightful and informative. It has a ten commandments for art quilters, which tells me we need one for needlepointers as well. (right now, I don't remember if this is on the blog or somewhere on the web page.)

The second picture is one of her large quilts from the "Housing Department." Equally wonderful are the Produce Section and Landscapes and Nature.

I won't attempt to show any more, as I could go on for several more pages about this wonderful version of needlework, which is a new one to me. Oh where have I been??

This lady dyes her own fabrics, I forgot to mention, and has them for sale, as well as threads. Anyway, do go see her web page at Art Fabrik and enjoy it. See also her blog, as there is a link to it on the web page.

The Joy of Simple Things - Fun Stitches and Techniques

I was checking again today on Mary Agnes' blog from Needle Nicely, (click here to see) and was happy to see what she's done with a simple, but effective stitch (Hungarian criss-cross, one of my very favorites) to make a bright, easy, effective piece of needlepoint stitchery

Mary Agnes is a shop owner and teacher (In Vero Beach, Florida) - so it's very gratifying to see someone who strays "out of the norm" and gets very creative for herself and encourages her clientele also.

Needlepoint is supposed to be fun. I had become bored with my topiary trees, but after seeing this and it's potential, I'm back at the drawing board and into the stash and decorating more trees, etc. - it's fun and relaxing, and these little projects are great for decompression from more tedious and serious things sometimes. It's also a great way to use up stash threads, and to learn and practice new stitches and techniques.

As it's time to get started for the next season, I have put purchase buttons for some of my e-pattern eggs and hearts - two on this blog, and two on the Freebies, etc. front page. Quick, easy, creative!!

Great Thread Information!!

Be sure to go see Mary Corbet's wonderful, informative blog as soon as possible, as she has just started a great series of posts involving the effect of the "Z-twist and S-twist" threads on our stitches. Click on the "continue reading" to see the whole thing as of now.

While I already was aware of the twist in the Perle Cotton (and who isn't?) I really hadn't thought of the effect it has on things like stem and outline stitch and even French knots!

A Learning Experience (a Big Mess)

New things never quite end up the way I had imagined. I wanted to use some of the stitches on this tree from Sharon B's stitch dictionary, which you can find on PINTANGLE, so chose as a base for the "tinsel" her heavy chain stitch. (You can find this dictionary on the list on the right side of her blog.)

The arrow points to an error I made when I decided not to stitch paint that line, centering it - it is quite off center and looks very strange. However, a few well placed silk ribbon flowers and a few French knots should disguise it, as I will NOT be ripping out anything here.

I switched to a chenille needle for the chain stitch, and found it quite easy and very effective, as it's fat and stands up well off the surface of the canvas. I didn't have the Kreinik braid I wanted to use in my stash, so used the 002V 1/16" ribbon, which has a lovely color and sheen. The lower arrow points to the place where I stitched in the mark for the next swag and failed to center it either. I'll have to make do with silk ribbon flowers here as well.


It's amazing how the curved lines become straight ones when the canvas is folded around to make the cone! The arrow points to a dip which is only there because of the way I'm holding the piece - it's just kind of crumpled and held in my left hand while I took the picture.


The lower arrows show where I extended the stitches down through the sawtooth gaps in order to continue the Nobuko stitches correctly, and as they are "blended," it will be even better. Again, the line looks wavy because of the way I'm holding it.

















I redrew the line that was light blue, and made it totally centered for better appearance. The arrow at the bottom points to the center mark I had made when I drew the lower curve. You can see how far off center my blue line was - YUK!


Anyway, back to the stitching, a good movie, and hopefully some more inspiration. I do have something else working that I'll show on Freebies hopefully tomorrow.

Developing Patterns for Needlepoint

While working on this project and getting more and more addicted to it, I realized that many people don't know why we designers charge such high prices for some of it - it takes a long time and a lot of thought and effort to get it right!

As the ideas keep coming and I keep working, I'm getting excited about the possibilities here with these conical shapes. I think this form, rather than the painted canvas version, started with some Murano blown glass trees I saw in the catalog from The Art Institute of Chicago. These images kind of "implant" in the brain.

Anyway - playing around today with the poster board cone and the white paper, I decided I needed to do something with "tinsel" swags going in a continuous diagonal line around the tree. The first photo shows a squiggly freehand line I drew. I had tried several things that didn't work, but we won't go into that now.

Bear in mind I was sitting up on my bed, watching a movie on the DVD player, so the line isn't perfect. Opening these things out is sometimes the fun part, as it's a big surprise.


It occurred to me that the curved lines appear to have their ends on a straight line, which would be great for making sure they connect at the right place on the back. So - out came the green marker and the straight edge - and Voila!!

Now to put it onto canvas with this as a guide. Obviously, the canvas will be oriented with the point at the top, and it will only require running a fingernail across to get the marks in the correct places on the edges. (I'll show it on Freebies, etc. when I get it drawn correctly)



Next, I decided to be clever and see what I could do with using my diagonal laces and trims of two years ago - so first I drew a series of straight lines parallel to the edges of the tree, as the laces were worked on the 45 degree angle of the canvas.. I didn't measure or anything, as this is just an experiment.


I couldn't believe what it looked like on the back when I put it onto the poster board cone!!

You can see that the lines are drawn straight and parallel to the edges. Again, I didn't measure anything - just random straight lines made with my plastic ruler.

Looking at this also gives me another idea - using my laces that are stitched on the horizontal and vertical. It can be done with a bit more time playing with paper and scissors.

I won't stitch one in lace unless I come up with something different, as this lace binge lasted quite a while - I first did that in the early 70's, and then again about 12 years ago. I'm all laced out and drained dry, but still love it! (However, I'm working on replicating Bavarian lace in needlepoint for another "ethnic doll" I have planned.)



















I'm showing the diagonal laces for anyone who missed them, as they were made in May, 1998. The diagonal "rollie" shows how well they translate for something like this. I went on to do mini-stockings with "jeweled" chains - all kinds of fun and glittery things. I have put the booklet of these at a discount price on Freebies, etc. for anyone who wants to try it.

Needlepoint Topiaries: Ignorance was Bliss!

I wasn't thinking when I put the first topiary trees on canvas so long ago - as I was still doing everything in basketweave, and saw no problem with doing it so oriented. It also conserved canvas, as the bottom is very wide, and to put the top of the cone at the top of the canvas used more than doing it the way the photo shows.

I've been looking at it, and realize I would have difficulty stitching it, even in basketweave, as I want things upright for some reason. The first tree I stitched was sent to my mother, as she had announced that she was not going to put up a tree for Christmas that year - so I sent her my funny looking little needlepoint topiary.

I had just begun to design again, so was not acquainted with or aware of a lot of decorative stitches and novelty threads, so stitched it in baskeweave with Caron's Watercolours. The resulting diagonal stripes were not pretty. I did put little "jewels" of different colors on it with bump stitches of different sizes, and outlined them with Kreinik gold metallic braid.

Now that my ignorance of these things has somewhat been cured, and my stash of novelty threads is outrageous, I've had a lot of difficulty with the project of resurrecting the little trees. I have to be sure the background stitches lie correctly - no diagonally oriented ones would work. It was much easier when I was completely ignorant and unaware.

I decided to just practice on this first one, and am using DMC floss with Nobuko stitch - needle shaded. I stitched a very light green line in tent stitch where I'll put surface embellishement in the form of a swag of silk ribbon flowers or something spectacular - I had to have the line showing so it will be horizontal and also meet where it should when the cone is closed and finished.

In the first photo, I have stitched down to the first division for the needle blending - where I will begin using 1 ply of the darker shade and 3 of the lighter.

















The second picture shows continuing Nobuko background in the second group of shades. The work then needs to be turned upside down in order to continue Nobuko to fill in the space and keep it lined up as it should be. It stops where the light green line is, as that is the place for the horizontal swag or whatever will be put there on top of the background stitching later.


ADDENDUM/NOTE: Rather than remove this post and start over, I am leaving it almost as it was - to show where I erred in judgment. I should NEVER make a blog post late at night when my reasoning/thinking is impaired. My brain wires short circuit after about 7 p.m.


Anyway, what I did here with the lines for the needle blending and the lines for the swags isn't good, and makes some really ugly looking places in the Nobuko stitch background.

Therefore, as the "swag" lines - the blue ones which I stitched in light green, should also be used as the shading lines, as it works nicely for this.

Any irregularities will be covered with surface embellishment, and it also divides the space into four sections, which is adequate - my wish is to have the tree lighter at the top and darker at the bottom, so it doesn't really matter. By doing it this way, there will be NO need to turn it upside down to fill in spaces.

If this "needle blending" technique is new to you, visit The Cape Stitcher for Anne Stradal's explanations when she uses it for skies on her beautiful lighthouses.

It's very important to keep this background stitch going properly - so you can see by the lower left arrow where I started the next row. It's actually quite simple if you understand the structure of this stitch.

The 1 and 3 ply combo will continue down to the black line, and then change to 2 and 2 plies of each shade. If it's ghastly looking, I'll trash it and start something else. It has occurred to me that these things needn't be all Christmas trees - nor do they have to be green. I can see seasonal table centerpieces with little forests of them. I have put the pattern over on Freebies, etc. for you, as well as a tutorial on how to design your own.

Drawing the Topiary Template - getting started

When this idea first popped into my head a number of years ago, I had no idea how I would make a conical 3-D tree in needlepoint, so went to a craft store and purchased three styrofoam cones - three different heights, as I had visualized a nice little forest of trees on the mantel or dining table. To save a lot of time here, I'll just say it didn't work.

The paper pattern models I made with them were way to skinny. Then - and again, skipping a lot of other failed experiments - I decided to just make a simple cone with poster board, using a compass and tape. To my surprise, a 90 degree angle worked best, and the proportions were wonderful for a needlepoint topiary tree!

I'm showing in this first picture the method one might use if one's compass is buried at the bottom of an unknown box in the garage - it's my trusty tape measure. I measured down from the corner 7 inches, and then, using the tape measure, just made intermittent dots, along which I cut the poster board. Neatness is not a great factor here..

Then I found the compass and it's extension arm, and did the same thing on a piece of white paper - but made more definite lines - neater, etc., and included two more concentric circles, as this willl aid in the pattern making to make any swags or other lines meet where they should when the cone is formed with the canvas. I cut the paper model very carefully and neatly along the bottom.

You can see the penciled lines that are partial concentric circles out flat on the pattern, but then are just lines that go straight around the cone when it's put together. (with a little bit of tape)




In the next photo, I just lightly sketched some ornaments to demonstrate the reason for doing this on a curve drawn when the pattern is out flat - the swag appears as it should, and also meets at the same place on the back (the arrows show) When drawing it onto canvas, this will assure you that the pattern meets.

To do this, I had placed the paper cone over the poster board cone for the stiffness, which allowed me to draw the ornaments, etc. with ease. The paper will later be un-taped and flattened for use as the pattern when drawing it onto the canvas.

The sketched ornaments and swags are just for demonstration - too messy to be a real pattern, but it gets the idea across, I believe.
With the paper cone opened out flat again, you can clearly see how the process works. The arrows point to where I left an overlap to make the drawing easier where the swags and concentric circles meet. That space will not be left on the canvas drawing.

I have decided to do the rest of this tutorial and show actual patterns on the Freebies, etc. blog, and then show the stitching and decorating and whatever will be done here on this one. You can let your imagination to wild on these, using the stitches and techniques you've learned, and getting into your own stash of wonderful threads!

I have so many of these things now whirling around in my head - I can see holiday/festive mantles or table tops - or dining tables set with centerpieces of little trees of varying heights and different colors - they needn't just be for Christmas!! Ideas for enhancements and surface embellishments are almost unlimited!!