How do you control a heart exploding with pride?

Some of my brilliant students are sharing their completed and almost completed creations from my class "Dare Design":

The complexity of Ann's piece is quite amazing! Her color choices, the way the diamonds form negative spaces, and how the beads are situated, are all enticing!

Pat's piece is so lovely! She called it Step Into My Garden, which seems perfect. It looks like a manicured small royal garden and all I want to do is step into it and stay!

Sally Barton's piece is mesmerizing, the crescents seem to be dancing across the canvas. Her colors are so appealing!

Melita's design, Crescent Journey, received a 3rd place ribbon and scored 94 out of 100 in her judges' critique!!

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Sally Barton, the journey she took in my class Dare Design...

Sally tunes into my online class, Dare Design, all the way from New Zealand! Her journey has been really fun to watch. At first, it seemed that she was a bit intimidated, and perhaps not sure how brave she wanted to be with color, however looking at where she took her design, I see a daring designer in the making!

Here is one of her very first drawings. The goal was to look at triangles as a composition of shapes and colors. We played with possible tessellations of her shapes.

Above are her second set of drawings.

The triangles from above were tessellated and this is what Sally achieved:

Next Sally looked for the right stitches to convey the shapes she came up with.

 And after much work and trials, we charted her final triangles. She decided to work with two different triangles and bring them together in a complete design.

Her final master chart looked like this:

Here is her work in progress!!!!

It's quite brilliant!

Kindly remember!! 

We are all well aware of the importance of respecting the ownership of a designer's work. 

These designs belong solely to Sally Barton. 

Do NOT print or use these designs for any purpose without Sally's explicit permission!!!

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Student to Designer, Mary Frances Kelly-Poh

Mary Frances didn't let anything stand in her way! She had been traveling for a good part of the class so the challenge was to keep working on her design with fewer tools and more distractions. Here is her journey in photos of her drawings and stitching.

I love the transition from the above square pattern to the "Petal" pattern below.

Refining...

Mapping out the possible stitches.

First go...

Second go...

And the charts:

It's now in Mary Frances' hands and she has begun the journey...

Kindly remember!! 

We are all well aware of the importance of respecting the ownership of a designer's work. 

These designs belong solely to Mary Frances Kelly-Poh 

Do NOT print or use these designs for any purpose without Mary Frances' explicit permission!!!

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Another Student to Designer transformation!!

Lynn Decker Miller is now stitching her completed piece. 

While she works on that, let's take a look at the path she took...

The first assignment was to map out a triangle and then paint it with watercolors:

Next the process of transforming the shapes inside the triangles into stitches. 

Here students found that they needed to be flexible, 

what looks good on paper doesn't always work on the canvas.

With the chart in hand, Lynn tackled the canvas, with great success!

She worked on a second colorway for the same triangle:

Her work was now in my hands. 

I charted her original triangle and then tessellated a few options for a final piece. 

Here are Lynn's charts for her design.

Kindly remember!! 

We are all well aware of the importance of respecting the ownership of a designer's work. 

These designs belong solely to Lynn Decker Miller. 

Do NOT print or use these designs for any purpose without Lynn's explicit permission!!!

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Just things and stuff

I hate it when a blog I enjoy following goes silent. That is usually followed by an apology which often is followed by another silence. I'm not going to do that. Apologizing may be bad karma in this instance so know that I am aware and feel bad about not writing in awhile and that even though I have been sick, nasty sick, that's no excuse and I'm not apologizing, even if I am really sorry for disappearing.

One of the great joys of my work has been the design class I am teaching online. What a fantastic group of stitchers! More than anything I admire their courage and am thankful for their willingness to go off on this strange journey with me. Not knowing exactly where I will take them, but coming anyway, is something I am very grateful for. We started back at the beginning of February and only now are we taking needle to canvas! We have been designing, and working hard, but only now are we going to see how it all comes together.

I  found a few more watercolor creations that I thought I'd share with you here. These are from a few weeks ago.

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$50 Thread Assortment purchase = FREE New Design Instruction Guide

Run on over to our Thread Assortment page and drink up the wonderful color explosion!

With every $50 Thread Assortment purchase you will receive a free PDF instruction guide for our new design "Triangular Trick"!

AND...  when you sign up for our new Dare Design workshop you will receive a 20% discount coupon for any of the items in our Thread Assortment page.  Upon completing this extraordinary design workshop you will need plenty of fabulous fibers for your own designs!

Click HERE to see the colors and shop for your favorites!

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Seriously, how can one resist? More options for Workshop!!

Here are the colorways for Dare Design, our 6 month workshop, which will take your creativity off the charts!

Kits include 40 fibers PLUS an additional 5 free Neon Rays as my gift to each student! You have an abundance of silks as well as metallics and some overdye cotton.

I am also introducing a new class option!! You may choose class participation and threads/beads only, without the various art supplies, reference book etc. which will run $460  (instead of $550).

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So sorry!! I hope you can see it now!!! Video: Dare Design

SIGN UP HERE!

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The evolution of design - Online Workshop

There are many ways to teach design. This one is unique.

In this 6 month workshop I will guide you through the evolution of YOUR design. 

1. The workshop will begin with a unique way of planting ideas for a design. Watercolors. User friendly watercolor brush pens will be perfect for coming up with an assortment of beautiful paintings which can potentially become your needlepoint design.

2. Next we will reign in the watercolors and translate them into shapes on graph paper. No worries, I will guide and explain.

3. From there we will look for stitches to fill in the shapes we've established. We will use reference books, and compile a bank of stitches.

4. On your doodle canvas you will experiment with these stitches and come up with the ones you want to use in your design.

5. Mark your graph paper with the stitches you have chosen putting them together in the triangular shape.

6. This is when I come in! With your graph paper in hand I will chart your design on my computer and will then tessellate your design to form a square or diamond comprised of 4 of your triangles. You will receive a file with your design, the name you give it and most importantly your name, the designer!

7. With a box of beautiful beautiful fibers, (you will be offered 4 possible color combinations), you will stitch your design. Here we will all work together to choose the best threads for the various sections of your design.

8. If you choose you may ask for a critique at the end of the workshop.

The workshop kit includes:

3 pieces of canvas (2 for doodle and one for design)

Notebook (it's imperative to keep notes as you make your way through the design process)

A set of 24 watercolor markers and a watercolor pen

25 sheets of cold press watercolor paper (5" x 7")

Graph paper pad

Ruler

Needlepoint reference book

Needles

Box of 40 different fibers (you will choose one of 4 colorways offered)
PLUS a gift of 5 Neon Rays cards.

An assortment of beads

The workshop also includes a file with your charted design, (PDF), and a designated classroom page where we will all meet and exchange ideas and thoughts.

There will be 12 designated days for presenting your completed phase. These will happen approximately once every two weeks.  It is important to work within the timeframe. Each step is a gateway to the next step.

Workshop and kit: $550
Critique at end of class: $75

Registration ends December 7th, 2017

Class begins February 1st, 2018

Sign up by November 1st and receive $35 off

(use code NOVCARE at checkout)

OPTION 1

OPTION 2

OPTION 3

OPTION 4

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