The White Rabbit was not late for his very important date! and what a date is was! I did get up at 3am to watch the Royal Wedding. How about you? Was I out of my mind or what? ooh but it was worth every moment to have gotten up at this crazy hour of the morning to witness history. It was thrilling, spectacular, breathtaking, touching, moving and at times left me speechless.

In case you are curious about this canvas that you have seen the last few nights, here it is! Alice in Wonderland by Lani. I had originally planned to use this canvas to kick off the blog with and I travelled all the way to Bedecked and Beadazzled in Baltimore to take classes with Brenda Hart herself. That is where I saw the Rainbow Birds and the rest is history! When you think that this canvas doesn’t look like me…well there is a cat in it, isn’t there? I must admit that I haven’t stitched on this much and hopefully can get back to it later this year. I have the threads and lots of beads all ready to go and some exciting stitches, but too much in front of it now.

I am on a road trip tomorrow, beads, framers, breakfast and A Stitch in Time and not necessarily in that order. I need to be on the road by 6:30AM…ooh the sacrifices I make for my stitching! and until next time…keep on stitching

I’m late! I’m late for a very important date! mutters the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. No time to say “Hello” good bye, I’m late! I’m late! I’m late! Now we mustn’t be late for the wedding of the century! Are you going to get up and watch it?

There have been lots of plans and preparations going on, not only for the Royal Wedding in London with all it’s pomp and circumstance, but with stitchers all over across the US! From Rittenhouse in Philadelphia who is celebrating the Royal Wedding by serving tea and scones at their shop…to Chaparral in Houston who is celebrating by having a Royal Wedding Super Sale for the day… to the Thread Garden in Ventura who will celebrate the Royal Wedding with a special day of stitching the Royal Monogram designed by Gay Ann Rogers and eating a Royal Brunch!

Coastal friends are planning on watching the wedding while chatting on Facebook of course while wearing their finest hats! Barbara Elmore was so inspired by Wendy Harwood of Aristea that she baked a batch of these divine butterscotch and walnut scones to celebrate with. I feel that they will be totally consumed long before the wedding starts! Gay Ann Rogers has been entertaining us royally for the last few weeks, with trivia, pictures of royalty and their finest wedding gowns and some new wonderful designs. She has the Royal Geometric Heart, A Royal Geometric that can be placed in a hand made box, a Royal Sewing Case and of course Royal Scissors Fob. I hear that Thread Gatherer dyed a very special silk just for this project! Many of the stitchers who ordered these from Gay Ann will be stitching the night away on them!

How are you going to celebrate the Royal Wedding? Alleycat presents herself to you in one of her finest Royal positions. and until next time…keep on stitching

I especially enjoy stitching in the season, as it kind of puts me in the spirit. So I spent this past weekend working on the Easter House by Needle Deeva. The roof is completed with the thread that the Deeva selected herself! I think that it is a little dark, and I am hoping that she just absolutely loves it as I really DON’T want to do any reverse stitching. Why is it that it seems that I do my absolute best unstitching or whatever you want to call it right after I have just vacuumed?

I normally start stitching the areas that I am absolutely sure that I know what I want to do with either the threads or the stitches or both. This gives me time to study other parts of the canvas, stitch it in my mind and envision what I might want to do. When the stitching goes smoothly in the beginning, it motivates me to keep moving along rather then relegating it to the closet, never ever to see the light of day again! You can see on the purple on the roof that I was trying out some stitches. The first one that I sampled on the far right that I thought would be just perfect, well isn’t. The challenge that I have now is, since I have already stitched the darker rows with the Kreinik, it is not so easy laying the threads, but I will use a larger needle to open the canvas holes a bit more.

I have some fun ideas for this canvas, along with trying some of the Sundance sequins in the flower beds. I also want to try on some flowered beads and a friend is shopping for me while she is at Harlequin Beads in Eugene, Oregon. Who knows I may need a road trip to Aristea to visit with Wendy and to look at what she has there for me to use.

As usual, Sylvester wasted absolutely no time at all taking over my spot when I got up a for a tea refill! I think that he is telling me that he is keeping my spot warm for me. and until next time…keep on stitching

Look at this luscious pile of threads! don’t you just want to start stitching now? This thread assortment is Planet Earth Fiber and is quickly becoming one of my new favorites! I came across a few skeins of this silk in my stash that I had bought when I was in Mindy’s shop last year, just because I just might need that color someday. Well someday got here sooner than I thought as they were to my eye the perfect greens for the leaves in the Rainbow Birds!

I am also using the 6 ply strand-able silk in the Needle Deeva Hearts namely Fern, Fiddlehead and Burnt Toast. The greens are also just the perfect colors for the Easter House too! This silk has a slight twist to it, the sheen is amazing and I love it. So far I have just been stitching basketweave with it, but I will experiment with decorative stitches too.

In their line they also have Planet Earth Silk which is a meant to be stitched with as is and not to be stranded. Silk Opal which is the same silk and has an additional spin of metallic added to it, giving your work just a little sparkle. I have used this for Christmas ornaments and it is perfect! Planet Earth Merino Wool is also another thread in their needlepoint line of threads. I have not used this one yet, but the white named “Cloud” looks very white!

I first discovered Planet Earth Fiber in the knitting section of the trade shows.The yarn that caught my eye is a yarn that has beads or sequins added to it! It really is not stitchable into the canvas, but could be easily couched for some wonderful effects and I am going to try it someday.

AlleyCat was working very hard getting in my way yesterday as I am trying to work! Already busy on the July/August issue of Needlepoint Now as I am editing some great stitch guides for our stitching pleasure. I keep a note book handy to write down questions for Elizabeth and also for my weekly One to One classes at the Apple Store. The larger monitor is from that other brand of computers, now that I am a Mac girl and is only used when I chart stitches. and for now…keep on stitching

and now that curiousity got the cat, of course you are wondering why they are so happy? That is because I added the finishing touches to the Rainbow Birds over the weekend! I am thrilled that they are finished, but in a way I am not since I was enjoying working on this canvas so much! I loved all the colors that Brenda Hart selected, the silks, the overdyes, the beads, the Kreiniks and of course these amazing stitches. Now if you just can’t stand this anymore and you just have to stitch this canvas, a little birdie told me with no pun intended…that tomorrow Pocket Full of Stitches will feature Danji Designs as their designer of the day! now what does that mean? that if you order Rainbow Birds by Laurel Burch which is part of the Danji Designs line, at Pocket Full of Stitches tomorrow, April 25th, that you will get 20% off! Now I know that everybody loves a sale!

Sylvester was admiring the Rainbow Birds as he was probably waiting and hoping for them to take flight! I was in the process of putting away the threads from the birds and filling up the container with the threads that I amassed for the Easter house. I have been using these containers for larger projects with lots of threads so that I can see them at a glance and it keeps certian feline children from getting their paws on them!

I did find that box of blackberries, but it was not getting a very good feline approval rating. Too big! and until next time…keep on stitching

I do love to decorate for the holidays and have to ever since I was a little girl. A beautiful white tree with many wonderfully hand painted Easter Eggs from Germany and Patricia Breen ornaments grace my spring tree. There is a great shop in the village of La Jolla that imports these eggs from the artists and I patiently await the Easter display every year to see what new ones that they have. I was so thrilled when I saw that the new addition to the collection…well it’s cats!

Robin from Needlepoint Study Hall has really outdone herself with her Easter decorations. The extent of my spring decorating this year was adding this new orchid to my collection, well it is in a purple pot! I was just so busy with stitching and writing stitch guides, that before I knew it was too late to decorate.

Sylvester & AlleyCat settle in for a night of supervision of my stitching duties. This is about as close as they get and they very rarely if ever curl up together…and they are most definately not BFF! Sylvester who is about 9 years older than AlleyCat would torment her when she was still a little bitty kitten, and she never ever lets him forget that!

The gang and I are going to take the weekend off! well even the stock market closes tomorrow. and until next time…keep on stitching

These hearts by Needle Deeva are just a delight to stitch! They are just the right size and if the needlepoint gods look favorably down upon me with my selection of threads and stitch ideas, it is only about 6 hours of stitching. You don’t need allot of threads and most of it you can shop for what you need in your stash…well some of us could as some have more stash than others! I sit down to start one of these and I enjoy them so much, that I just keep stitching until it’s done. Such a sense of accomplishment when you get to say “I am finished!”

These hearts were so popular in Dallas, and even though I had already stitched 3 of them, the Deeva and I thought that it would be great to do them all. The first 3 have departed for Elizabeth Turner Collection finishing department and I will be anxious to see what magic Sugar works on them to have them ready for their big debut in Columbus!

It is time to start my work for July/August issue of Needlepoint Now and Elizabeth has some wonderful surprises in store for us! Now mathematically speaking, there are at least a million and one places that “Her Royal Highness” and we won’t mention any names now, will we AlleyCat? yes there at least a million and one places that she can park her behind, why I ask you does it have to be right on my papers? and until next time…keep on stitching

I am sure that there are a million and one color possibilities with our thread selections! I consider myself a “silk snob” and always head for those first. I just love the sheen, the feel in your hands, the look on the canvas, the way the threads lay on your canvas and ooh all those color possibilities! Do I want to use Soie d’Alger or Belle Soie or Gloriana or Needlepoint Inc or Planet Earth or Splendor or…just too many more to remember them all!

What you see here is an amazing selection of all the colors of Belle Soie! Isn’t this beautiful? I think that I really have most of the colors selected and ready to start my 4 new canvases for Needle Deeva, which are the Easter House and the 3 new hearts. I just want to be sure, so I looked a little more and what do I find but this color “Foo Foo Flamingo!” I think that will be perfect for the Easter House and another called “Cabbage Patch” that just might work in one of those hearts. Now what I think is perfect now, could look just awful once it is in the canvas.

I could not control myself any more and started pulling some colors for my “Cat’s Night Out.” Now Sharon, should I bead the black cats? or stitch them? and what color number of gold beads would I use? Starting this canvas will be my reward for when I finish Santa riding the Panda, which hopefully will be very soon! and until next time…keep on stitching

There isn’t much in life that I would give up starting off my day watching a baseball game! This morning is the Patriot’s Day game played in Fenway Park with the Red Sox facing their opponents at the same time as the Boston marathon takes place. The one thing that I will give it up for is spending a day with Susan Portra at Newport Needlepoint stitching on my panda. I feel empowered just sitting in her prescence as I attempt to finish the bag!

I did stitch on this most of the day yesterday as I worked out lots of the detail…such as their eyes, compensating stitches in the panda’s face, finishing the tassel on the lantern, starting the gold beading around the blanket, starting the snow that he is walking on, working out the blanket too with all those wonderful compensating stitches and adding the center stitch of Kreinik in the pavillion diamond giving it a wonderful quilted effect!

Finishing this canvas has moved up to the top of my list as my goal is to enter this in the American Needlepoint Guild exhibit this year. Figuring in framing time, I have about a month left! Sounds like allot of time? but really isn’t! So I will hit the road in about an hour and stitch the day away. and until next time…keep on stitching

Even though yesterday I did not pick up a needle to put a stitch into any of my canvases, my entire day was all about stitching! Usually once a month I take a road trip starting out with breakfast at Julienne’s which is so worth the drive! On the road again with a shopping trip at A Stitch in Time for threads and onto the framers to look at what we are going to do with the Rainbow Birds. I picked up my “Fishful Thinking” and now I have to find just the right place to hang it! From the framers I stop at the San Gabriel Bead Co to look for beads that I just can’t live without, you know, stash enhancement. Usually all the shoppers in there are looking for beads to make jewelry, so when you walk in there with a canvas, heads turn! A quick stop at Starbuck’s for an iced tea before I visit one more shop for a few more threads.

After such a busy day, I was too tired to stitch, so I spent most of the evening pouring through books looking for inspiration for that perfect stitch! I organized all of the threads, including the ones that I just purchased for my 4 new projects. I am looking for building type stitches, grass, sky and beading ideas for the flowers and leaves. I will make notes of the stitches that I will try, hoping that the needlepoint gods will be good to me with both my selection of threads and stitches!

You know I really did do a better job than this making my bed this morning. Now that big lump wasn’t there when I made the bed with that beautiful quilt that my sister made for me! Where did that come from? Sylvester is that you? AlleyCat, where are you? and until next time…keep on stitching