Needle Delights Originals

I'm excited to announce that I am offering an online Mystery Class through Shining Needle Society again. For the first time, the Mystery design is square. It's also different than my other Mysteries but does cover the canvas completely. Class will start on January 1st - I think it'll be fun to start a brand new project on New Year's Day. I've already heard of several groups of people who will get together to stitch this project - what fun!  You can see all the details here or here .  The above photo is a sneak peek of a very small portion of the design. I drew the whole design on the canvas before I began stitching and really enjoyed this new process for me.  I'm offering four different colorways for this project or you can choose your own. I will show you photos of the threads for the colorways. The Watercolours and Pearl Cottons are firm but the Vineyard Silks and Rainbow Gallery fibers may be tweaked some after I finish traveling this month. There are ...

It has been a fairly lazy summer for me - after a wildly busy spring traveling and teaching, I was happy to have a couple of months at home with a  week long vacation the middle of July to visit friends. I have used a good portion of  the summer creating next year's Mystery class - I'm almost done with the stitching and registration will begin soon - details to come after I get back from Dallas.. In the meantime... I'm heading to Dallas this weekend to exhibit at Destination Dallas. Although it's mostly a painted canvas show (so I've heard; this is my first time exhibiting), I'm hoping to introduce counted needlepoint to some shopowners. I'm thrilled to have a good friend riding along with me so I don't have to do the 10 hour drive alone. She is from Dallas and is thrilled to go along with me and visit family while I do the tradeshow! WIN/WIN! I will be releasing three new patterns. Valentine's Day is the newest addition to the Holiday Delights S...

I've been spending some time digging out flower beds and doing a little planting. Although I love flowers and would like to have a beautifully landscaped yard and garden, I'm not a big fan of actually working with dirt and yard tools. After planting a bunch of flowers and a few vegetables this past weekend (with my father's help - he's a fabulous gardener!), I'm enjoying the view of my backyard from the window next to my sewing machine!  Now that the dreaded yardwork is done, for the most part anyway, I'm getting back to finishing up the instructions for a new design so I can get it to the printer this afternoon. I will be releasing two new designs next week on May 15th. I've sent all the info to the shops and just put them up on my website on my Coming Soon page.  First up is Colorblocks.  This design uses a similar palette to my Colorwaves design. I love working with this bright color scheme using all the colors of the rainbow. I used Watercolou...

February is one of the craziest months as the Nashville wholesale market is the first weekend in March. For the first time ever, I had completed stitching all of my designs by the end of December and managed to eke out a new Holiday Delights in January! I felt great being ahead of the game but after finishing the stitching, there's the instruction writing, printing, stuffing thousands of patterns into plastic bags (I do have help, thank goodness!), communicating with my shops and distributor, packing the models and patterns to travel to market, and more boring but oh so necessary administrative details.  Did I say I love this time off year?! I really do as I look forward to market like a fabulous dessert - I get to see all my shopowner friends and other designers. We all generally work our fingers to the bone while having a fabulous time with some belly laughs and the promise of delightful sales. At this point, you're thinking, enough, show us the new designs - here ...