for Ice Cream! Do you know that today is National Ice Cream Day?

Even AlleyCat screams for ice cream…and yes she sure does. She can be asleep for hours, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her furever or heard the pitter patter of her little paws…but just let me set an ice cream container on the counter, she is right there to lick the bowl, lick the spoon, well you get the idea. She meows loudly until she gets her own.

So why all the deal about ice cream? Well its hot these days and there’s nothing better than cooling off by diving into a dish or cone of wonderful, flavorful ice cream. Plus It’s national ice cream month! Today is the actual National Ice Cream Day, but why just today? Ice cream is great any time…

I thought that this canvas by Maggie is a great way to celebrate the day along with a dish, a cone or any kind of ice cream.

Even Mooch and Earl want ice cream!

Many ice cream places will be offering free treats today…check it out!

AlleyCat is ready to go out with me!

and until next time…keep on stitching

Here it is 6 weeks after the TNNA Summer Market and I still have not shared all of the pictures of the new stuff with you… See time really does fly!

Painted Pony is a lot more than angels, she now has many artists in her line… but nothing as well known as her angels!

These were both new ones that were introduced. Now do you think that we were lucky enough to get the Christmas Cats with our trunk show at the shop? NO! but it’s probably just as well, as that way I won’t be tempted.

Maybe soon she will be well known for her Mary Engelbriet line that should debut at Dallas!

I really haven’t been stitching much these days. It seems that by the time I do a few work errands on my way home for work, feed the cats, have a little dinner myself, that I am them too tired! Now Friday night I am going to the baseball game and Sunday I am headed up to Los Angeles to see my sistah Meredith as we are tired of playing phone tag… this way we can see each other face to face.

A guess no one believed me that I was really going to trade AlleyCat in for a new model!

and until next time…keep on stitching

Stop calling it Bastille Day! it is the name that English speaking countries have given to le 14 juillet, of course celebrated on the 14 of July each year. In France it is formally called Le Féte Nationale or the National Celebration or even Le Quatorze Juillet.

a day of celebrations of French culture. So much more than French wine… it is the French National Day or so many names for 1 day of the year. Canvas by Unique New Zealand, which is in my I’m going to stitch this someday in my lifetime pile.

So what exactly is Bastille Day? Well today is the anniversary of the storming of The Bastille and the unity of the French Nation during the French Revolution…

What could make you think about France more than Julia? Julia Child that is.

Julia loved cats! So for more than one reason, I gotta love this lady…

There was a kitty-kat adoption at my local Petco with lots of kittens this past weekend and of course I had to take a look-see. When I got home I threatened AlleyCat that maybe I might trade her in for a new model if she doesn’t behave herself…

Like this…

Even though she looks pretty cute sitting there…she is somewhere she knows she’s NOT supposed to be! She was busted and as soon as I ask “and what do you think you are doing there?” she sasses me and then jumps down. What am I to do with her?

and until next time… keep on stitching

When you attend market, there is so much more than canvases there to look at. Atenti is one of my favorite stops at market and their booth is always soooooooooo busy! After all we need that perfect bag to carry our canvas in… or your cat as the case may be.

This is the beautiful Andrea of Atenti, who has the passion for finding this fabulous fabric and creating these bags!

a new style of bag, which I love! I wonder how the cats will fit into this one?

Here it is in black and red. Very elegant looking!

These are the new stix sax by Leigh. Made for knitting needles, but why can’t we use them for needlepoint?

See Sylvester fits purr~fectly into this Atenti bag!

and until next time…keep on stitching

There was quite a lively discussion on Facebook the other day about The Santa. I had just seen him at market, along with Mrs. Santa, so I was able to help the stitchers that just had to have it, with the designers name, which is Clarice Bethel. These pictures from market are never the best BTW!

I was not fortunate enough to have known Clarice personally, but in a way I feel that I do anyway. Her faces are easily recognizable and those mesmerizing eyes, I would know them anywhere!

The detail and the life that she puts into her faces are just amazing. Makes you want to sit down and stitch one. Mr. and Mrs. Santa would make a lovely pair to hang on your walls. Just tell you LNS when you want to order them…that they come from Sophia Designs.

This is a new canvas by the artist Penny Macleod for the collection. This one really intrigues me and I would love to stitch it!

Labors of Love, isn’t he handsome? new canvases in 2 sizes.

a little closeup! His height makes him very impessive…

and speaking of that face…the best one of all!

and until next time…keep on stitching

It sure looks like Mooch and Earl did! How about you? I didn’t budge out of the house for 2 days as I watched lots of baseball, watered plants, finished my work for the September/October issue for Needlepoint Now, did some much needed housework, watched fireworks from my balcony and, and, and…drum roll please! really, really made a big dent in organizing my threads. I still have lots more hours to finish up, but I made great strides.

The beads and the Kreinik are good to go and I sure was glad that I had already bought 2 more boxes from the Container store to ready myself for this project as I used them both.

I had many partial cards of Splendor with the numbers on the BACK of the cards…do you remember that? Maybe I am dating myself! Rainbow Gallery used to place a numbered sticker on the back of the cards. All of those were pulled out of my stash and are moving on as I am sure that the dyelots are no where were they are today. I have learned with the amount of model stitching that I do, that I need current dyelots.

Sunday morning I just had to go to The Cottage for breakfast as since I’ve been back to the shop, I am off of my routine! Did a few shop errands on the way home, a little window shopping for myself and came home to more thread organization and sorting. I did find that it was very quiet in the stores this Sunday morning, so it was a great shopping experience!

I was sitting on the floor since there was more room to spread out and shortly l was joined by my su~purrvisor!

and until next time…keep on stitching

So what’s on your agenda for the 4th of July? A cookout?

a picnic?

eating some ice cream of course!

parade watching?

going to the beach? ooh that Mooch is so mean to Earl!

well of course a little baseball!

anyway you celebrate America’s birthday…enjoy!

and until next time…keep on stitching

I have been lucky enough to have much of my stitching published in Needlepoint Now.. but this was the first time I am on the front cover! I am just a little bit over the moon about it. I am thrilled with the way the cover came out and as Elizabeth says “this is my best cover ever!” but I think that she/we say that with every new cover shot. But this one is…really!

The canvas came home with me right after the Winter Market in January and I started on it shortly there after. I begin with the simplest, easiest areas that I know what I select is right on the money!

After picking out some threads to begin with, I outlined the dog first in tent stitch..well that’s kinda easy, no? I went to the sand next, which I realize now that I never took any pictures of that area of stitching. Then the canvas took a few trips with me to Austin and then Atlanta as I tweaked some threads.

Stitching went rather seamlessly with little reverse stitches, except for the sky. I originally started out with 2 strands for the small swirl stitch, but realized that I didn’t like it…so I went to a single strand.

Can you see the swimming fish in the ocean? well Cindy (who is the distributor of Annie Lane canvases) requested some fish in the ocean…so I obliged!

I used Painters Thread Ric-Rac for the where the ocean met the sky. It was really very easy to applique that onto the canvas and gave me the look that I wanted!

Working on the bucket…

Buttons for the eyes and a starfish charm for the bucket finishes him off. A fun, fun, fun canvas to stitch, even though it is a D-O-G! You know isn’t that what needlepoint’s all about…having fun, enjoying what you are doing and loving the piece that you are stitching on? Life is way too short to stitch what you don’t like!

AlleyCat, its really not that cold out!

and until next time…keep on stitching

I guess you could say I had a little insider information! See I stitched this piece for the magazine with the publication in the July/August issue of Needlepoint Now.

We have this beautiful window at the shop and I love, love, love doing the windows! Did I say love? well I really do…a few hours to transform an area into something pleasing to the eyes. There is a lot of foot traffic that passes by the shop, so what a great way to catch their attention!

Being that I had this “insider info,” I ordered a few Finding Agnes canvases with the matching magnets…well what you were thinking? Then I started shopping for “stuff” to make a beachy window. I did dig through my storage unit not once, but twice as I looked for stuff I had before and found what I was looking for!

You can see as I progress along with the window… realizing that I needed to move that straw bag as it wasn’t working where it was!

Pleased with it so far! Just need to pull the threads called for in the stitch guide that is in the magazine…

Now we just need the magazine to come in…maybe today! and oh BTW can I tell you how thrilled I am with the way that the cover of the magazine came out?!

I guess you could call this a shameless plug, but if you just gotta have this canvas, magnet and threads…just give the Needle Nook of La Jolla a call @ 800-685-1711 or e-mail us ndlpt@needlenook.com

It was a real joy stitching this canvas, no reverse stitching, no this, no that, just sheer pleasure in stitching…oh did I tell you that I named the dog? He is “famous” Amos and he did find Agnes the Crab. Why Amos? when I taught last year for Cindy Matthews at Wellesley Needlepoint, which is the distributor for these canvas, Cindy’s dog at the shop is Amos and they look like each other.

To my cats …please forgive me for stitching a D-O-G!

and until next time…keep on stitching

We are only a few days into summer and already I am thinking of snow and cooler weather! Well, no not really as it has not yet heated up in San Diego, but in other parts of the US, I hear it’s been hot! hot! hot!

So keep cool and stitch snow as I collect these new canvases from the summer market. The first picture of the pile of snowmen is by Labors of Love.

this canvas is by Machelle Sumervile…

Santa Puppies by Pepperberry…

Even though this Gingerbread House canvas by Pepperberry is not new, the finishing is! Check this out by Mountain Shadow Studio. I love this so much that I want to stitch one for myself…

This canvas is by the collection and check out that racoon hat…too cute! I really want to stitch something where I actually knit a scarf and this might be the one, what do you think?

in case you don’t recognize that tail, it belongs to AlleyCat…that silly girl.

Brenda Hart is in town this weekend and teaching for 4 days at the shop…talking about things heating up!

and until next time…keep on stitching