Needlepoint to sit on!

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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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I declare mandatory waiting periods!

I'm here, behind the boxes... We moved into our new home two weeks ago today. I have moved at least 30 times in my life, sometimes in the same city, a few times to different continents. It doesn't get easier... Still so much unpacking and finding the right place for our stuff needed. One thing I vow is to stop buying things that I will look to donate a few years later! How much money gets wasted, and in many cases if you wait to make sure you need something, you find out that it's really not necessary. I hereby proclaim a waiting period for anything I buy! Promise!

A few photos of my green room, one of my favorite rooms in the house...

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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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The House I Built, not the needlepoint one.

It's progressing, right? The metal window wall is up as well as the walls of the greenhouse. The hanging wood cabinet is NOT the right color! This will have to be fixed to a color much closer to the wood floor. 

The view from my windows is not a city view, is it?
I'm very happy with the mix of shiny new cabinets and old beaten up wood cabinet.

 I love the pattern we did in the wood floor at the entrance! It almost looks like a wood area rug.

Our Master Bath is full of pattern. There are SO many decisions that need to be made when building a house and I love most of my choices. The stone floor in the bathrooms is not one of my favorites but it will do.

 I really obsessed with the tiles in the kitchen. I saw them in a European magazine, tracked down the US supplier, realized that I can only afford a small area and placed them sort of like a runner in the kitchen. I love them!! Not everyone does, I realize that.

 Our stove top is Induction. We love the way induction works, even more than gas.

That's it for now.

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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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30% Discount on our Thread assortments!

Use code YUMMIES at checkout for 30% off these luscious silk combinations! These threads rarely go on sale, let alone 30% off! 

See the HERE.

 

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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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How my Students became Designers , AMAZING work!

Dare to Design, one of my most challenging and yet gratifying classes is in its final stages. 

I want to share some of the work of my very talented students. 

Patricia Karpenko has taken us on a wonderful journey. 

She began with the watercolor phase of the process and came up with this beautiful triangle, 

an initial cell of her tessellating design.

After working off of this painting for a bit, she woke up one morning with a variation that excited her, and she embarked on a slightly different direction.

After this initial drawing, she went to the canvas and interpreted the drawing in an exquisite way!

 The shapes and colors are magnificent.

Once she finalized the stitches, it was my turn to chart her design. 

Pat received this first laminated chart of her new design: Step Into My Garden.

I also sent her this chart of her triangle tessellated, coming together into a square. 

The ball is back in her court. Pat is working on her piece, stitching the complete design 

with any final changes or additions she may come up with.

I will share her completed design when she is done.

Congratulations Pat!!

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