As we celebrate Hari~Kuyo today, I found some fascinating reads this morning including Plays with Needles which is probably my absolutely favorite blog! Such a fun and talented lady and I just wish that Susan blogged more often.

Threads Across the Web; A Needle in a Market and more appropiately would be a Needle in a Haystack since it seemed most challenging finding this needle shop! But well worth the effort.

I have 2 Japanese needles among my treasures from when I took a Japanese Beading Class with Mary Alice Sinton last year. One of these days I will blog about it and share my pictures, of which I do not have one shot of Japanese needles at the moment!

In the scheme of things, handmade Japanese needles are expensive and a single needle costs about what 4-5 packs of regular machine punched needles cost! They are much heavier and are meant to be used for many hours of stitching with their proper care and cleaning.

Okay back to needlepoint and more goodies from market! The next four canvases are by Danji Designs and are available in either 13 or 18 mesh. I could see stitching all 4 of these and grouping them together as pillows or framed on my walls.

Harmony by Danji Designs…

Love by Danji Designs…

Prosperity by Danji Designs…

Tranquility by Danji Designs

Canvas by Elizabeth Turner Collection… I might need to order this canvas sooner or later!

The next few days I will keep my nose buried in my stitch books and drawing program as I gather stitch ideas for my class at Blue Bonnet…at the same time that I search for the purr~fect stitches for my 2-3 canvases (but who’s counting?) that I am working on at the moment. My stitching projects are for future issues of Needlepoint Now and I like to give Elizabeth the first rite of publication, so no peeking!

I realized that you haven’t seen Sylvester in awhile! See he is not the busy body that THAT other feline resident is and I can usually find him napping in his 2 favorite spots on the couch. So when he jumped in my stitching bag, it made for a great Kodak moment!

and until next time…keep on stitching