Needle Delights Originals

This is the last of the colorways completed - it's called Glowing Embers and consists of Purples, Rusts, and Grays. Amy K. from Phoenix stitched it and brought it to the class I've taught the last few days in California at Needle in a Haystack. I was thrilled to see it in person! The pattern will be available soon and it can now be pre-ordered. I've posted the pre-order info .    Amy is amazing - she also brought a large number of my pieces that she'd stitched - I took photos to share here...This is Amy with her Color Delights and Double Delights - she has stitched every single one of them and is thinking of putting them in a soft wallhanging someday!   And here are some of her other pieces - it was quite a great Show & Tell for everyone there!     I taught Serenity the last two days and took a photo of class during the break! These are the "diehards" who won't stop stitching long for a break! They were a delightful g...

  Some of my students spent the weekend stitching! Here are more of the colorways finished! First up is the Confetti colorway, stitched by Lois S.   Next is the Earthtones colorway, stitched by Carla H.   This is the Greens/Blues colorway, stitched by Valerie H.   and Barbi's "Beachy Starstruck" - she chose her own colors, which she'll happily share! Thank you again for a great class! Here's a sneak peek of Oasis - it'll be offered soon through Shining Needle - I have threads laid out and am in the middle of choosing colorways. A trip to the Needle Bug may be on the agenda tomorrow!   Here's the sneak peek in black and white - sometimes I take a photo in black and white just to see the design and not be influenced by the color. It's easier to see the light, medium, and dark tones this way.    Happy Stitching! Kathy  

My Mystery class is finished - I sent the last lesson on July 1st. It was a six month class and the end was kind of bittersweet for me as I hit "send" to end the class. The best part is I can finally show my finished Starstruck!     Below is the Greens/Blues version - Valerie sent me a photo this morning of her finished piece!   ...and here is Cranberry from DeAnn. This was such a fun piece and it was a wonderful class. I especially loved seeing the other five colorways come to life. There has been such interest and demand, I will be releasing the pattern next month. Shops can pre-order now. Happy Fourth of July! Kathy

  You may be asking yourself when "Americana" became a COLOR?! I say now! I like to throw some different "colors" into my series of Color Delights to make you go hmmmm.... Occasionally somebody will tell me (or ask nicely!) what they'd like me to design for them. Americana came from one such "brainstorming session" (AKA lunch with friends!) when I laughingly said I could do something small with red white and blue stars and thought out loud, "I know, I'll throw it in the Color Delights series and call it "Americana". The joke was on me as I pondered it briefly and then said, "that's actually a great idea"! So here it is...just a few weeks later! I love it when something just flows so easily!     I'm almost done writing instructions and ordering threads and have just posted the pattern and kits on the website . Shops and customers may pre-order now.   I've started a new series and finished the first...

I'm so pleased to show you photos of some of my students' work! They've had such fun stitching Serenity and several have completed it. It's such fun to see the different colorways come to life! First up is Pam B's - it's called "Flowers of Italy". She was clever and added her initials to the piece - can you find them?!   Next is Highland Garden - it was one of the most popular colorways!   And here's Arnhem Heath, the ever popular purple and green!  I'll be teaching this project at Needle in a Haystack in Alameda, CA next month - if you're wanting some Serenity, come join us. You can see all the info here. Kathy

I've been taking a break from designing to give my creative juices some rest and work in other areas of my life. It's very strange to not have anything on the stretcher bars but it's an interesting exercise to not design for a few months. I've not done this since I started designing. I decided to take this "sabbatical" to see what happens. Of course, the ideas never really stop so the idea notebook is still growing. I am getting a big cross stitch project done and have been able to spend a lot of time in my sewing room working on some fun quilts. This past weekend I taught a pilot class for my new design, "Serenity". This group of ladies from my "local" Chapter (70 miles away!) did a great job and here they are after two days of stitching! It was so fun to see the different colorways emerge on their canvases!   This weekend I'm headed to Orlando for the Sun Region Seminar.  I'm taking advantage of Studio Time and hav...

To celebrate St Patrick's Day, I share one of my best selling Color Delights - Shamrock! It was one of the first Color Delights designs I did and just made me think "Kelly Green" which took me to "Irish" to "St Patty's Day" and voila, "Shamrock" because all of my Color Delights titles are one word for the color name.  And here's what Gretchen from Threads Inc did with it - you can contact her if you're interested in it. There are several colorways and I think she did a fantastic job with my humble little design, adding and multiplying the patterns and choosing alternative colorways on top of it all!  I'm mailing the last of the Mystery kits for my ongoing class today and then moving on to some seriously needed "spring cleaning"! We had 80 degree weather yesterday so I think our Winter is finally gone...I'm happy to see it go and holding on to the hope that we actually have a Spring and not jump ...