This canvas was introduced at market last year, Japanese Snow Cranes by Joy Juarez. I fell madly in love with it and sooner then later I needed to order this canvas!

It lives in my closet on bars, never to have seen any stitching time as of yet. Just too busy stitching for classes and models and it is too big of a canvas. What was I thinking?

So what did they do this year? They introduced 2 smaller canvases of the Japanese Snow Cranes. Now you’re talking! But which side do I want to order? Left or right? Decisions! decisions! now why do they always have to go and make it so hard to decide?

Great canvas by Ewe and Eye. I could see myself adding this canvas to my stash!

Canvas by Mindy. This bird is so lifelike, that I am waiting for it to fly off the canvas!

Canvas by Point of It All Designs. What fun you could have designing a wonderful background for this!

Canvas by Zecca. Love this one too!

I came home yesterday after being gone for a few hours. No greeting at the door, no meows of welcome home and she wasn’t ready to rally from her mid afternoon slumber …when all of a sudden I felt something brush across my foot. Thought maybe it was a mouse or something. Well it was AlleyCat as she ran by hoping to catch that birdie that was chirping on the balcony. Silly girl!

and until next time…keep on stitching

Let me introduce you to Pharaoh Dog, canvas by Tapestry Fair. Isn’t this canvas amazing? Even though you all know me as a sworn lover of cats, I could be easily convinced to stitch this one. OMG, what is happening to me?

Ruth of Bedecked and Bedazzled is writing a stitch guide for Pharaoh Dog that will be available towards the end of February. It will complement Bastet, also by Tapestry Fair.

Does the Pharaoh Dog remind you of someone? Well let me remind you…

it would look absolutely amazing hanging on my wall next to Bastet…that is if I could ever finish this canvas! It is not happening any time soon since I have so many new models that I need to be stitching.

Now onto some more new canvases from market…

This is a new artist that is in Barbara Russell’s line…I just absolutely love these new designs!

or how about this one? same artist with Barbara Russell and another wonderful canvas!

Speaking of cats, this is a big cat by Elizabeth Turner Collection.

or how about a purse full of little Kittens by Fatell. I could stitch this one…purr~fect!

AlleyCat is hanging out in her upstairs bedroom! I am still not sure how she manages to propel herself up there…you know as svelte as she is. I can usually find Sylvester in the downstairs bedroom (the lower box) snoozing away.

and until next time…keep on stitching

We take a break from our regularly scheduled blogging…to share a little San Diego with you!

This weekend is the State Farms golf tournament at Torrey Pines. A beautiful part of La Jolla that overlooks the ocean where only these magnificient pine trees grow!

I will never forget the US Open from 2008 when Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate battled hole to hole to the very end. (now this weekend is not the US Open, but you, the Open can come back at any time.) The entire city literally stood and watched!

I am not an avid fan of watching golf, but I do enjoy the big tournaments and it is great stitching company. There is nothing more exciting than Tiger watch on Sunday, but that is not happening today… or there is watching our home town guy Phil Mickelson, but that’s not happening either.

Thanks to Carol Gantz of Associated Talents who shared this great picture on Facebook right after market. A sand castle with the Hotel del Corondao in the background.

To all my friends and family swallowed up in that polar vortex, keep warm!

AlleyCat was ready for a little play time! and until next time…keep on stitching

Thank you to Dena @Kreinik Girl for this great picture of the gravity racks of all this Kreinik at market! you know all of these amazing canvases that we have really are only part of it..as we need threads!

Kreinik introduced some new colors at market and these were available for sale at Sample It…

but by the time that I was able to go shopping, well

they were all sold out!

New threads from Planet Earth Fiber called Furr, Fuzz and Funn!

of course I am anxious to get my hot little hands on this new thread. If it is anything like their other threads, I know I am going to love it!

New colors from ThreadworX in their overdyed floss, Vineyard Silk and Soie d’Alger.

Of course Rainbow Gallery outdid themselves with 9 new colors of Rainbow Linen, 5 new Wisper colors including reintroducing a replacement color for the wonderful gray that had been discontinued, new Water N’ Ice, Neon Rays, Neon Rays Plus, Fyre Werks, Very Velvet, Gold Rush and Treasure Braid…wow!

Remember when I said I wasn’t really sharing my market experiences in any special order? Well…this was leading up to market as I assembled my thread kits for classes.

Well of course you know that AlleyCat has to get into the picture!

and until next time…keep on stitching

This was another new canvas by Lani, her horse collage. Gorgeous canvas, celebrating the year of the horse!

The spirit of the horse is recognized to be the Chinese people’s ethos — intelligent, energetic, warm-hearted and bright. Ancient people liked to designate an able person as “Qianli Ma,” a horse that covers a thousand li a day (one li equals 500 meters).

People born in the Year of the Horse are good communicators who enjoy large crowds and like to be the center of attention. They are clever, kind, gregarious, talkative, perceptive, cheerful, popular, hard-working and stubborn.

Just as there are many famous horses such as Barbaro, Secretariat, Man O’War and Seabiscuit, there are many famous people born in the Year of the Horse such as Genghis Khan, Sir Isaac Newton, Barbara Streisand, Frederic Chopin, Paul McCartney and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (better known simply as Rembrandt).

But to figure what year is your year, you need to refer to a Chinese Zodaic calendar. If you were born say in the year of the horse, it would be figured that you were born after the Chinese New Year which begins on January 31rst this year… if not your year would be configured on the previous year.

Another beautiful canvas to celebrate the year of the horse. This is a Laurel Burch and is dsitributed by Danji Designs.

My magazine work is 99.99% finished for the March/April issue and I want to yell that out loud. I have a few more stitch guides to finish up which will be short and sweet and one to write, which will take the hours. I actually did a little stitching for myself and spent a few hours with Susan Portra on Thursday and Saturday will be with Brenda Hart. Then it will be some intense stitching on all these new canavses that I have for models and classes in my hot little hands! They are all on bars and now I need to get busy selecting threads and stitches. No rest for the wicked!

and until next time…keep on stitching

No, it’s not hump day…it’s National Answer your Cat’s questions day! ever wonder why your cat acts a certain way? every question why that feline of yours starts meowing for no apparent reason? or runs around the room like a crazy one? well I do… and especially if you lived with AlleyCat, you would ask that all the time!

In case you are thinking, well come on…please tell us about this canvas, what are you wating for? This was one of 2 new collages introduced by Lani at this years market. I love this canvas and think that it is purr~fectly wonderful, but that will be allot of long and short stitching, of which I would need allot of practice in that technique.

Another reason that I am so attracted to these collages, well I do have one or two of them in my stash, is that it is like working 9 smaller canvases. As you travel through the canvas and finish each cat, it motivates you to move onto another section which is totally different than the last cat you just stitched. You don’t get bored and no big background to worry about.

This is from a new artist introduced to market in Barbara Russell’s line. This was a canvas that I did order for myself! Well I was with Elizabeth and she is great at being an enabler and yes Elizabeth, I know I should say look who’s talking about being an enabler. It is a nice size, on 13 mesh and the quilt might be lovely just worked in basketweave with Pepper Pot or Vineyard Silk. I am sorry that I didn’t get the artist’s name.  I have a few more from the same artist I will save for another day.

Speaking of cats and even though this is not a new canvas from Maggie, it is what I think of what’s old is new again. This is the canvas that I selected for the Stitcherie games. I have had this in my stash for ever and maybe this will motivate me to work on it!

So you ask what is the Stitcherie challenge? Did you read about it in the latest Needlepoint Now? This stitching group is membership based and was developed via Ruth Schmuff’s brilliance…you know Ruth of Bedecked and Bedazzled? Every month a clue is given by the moderator K.B. and that clue inspires you to stitch a section of your canvas. The stitchers have been quite clever working their clues into their stitching. Of course I am behind, but at least I did put it on stretcher bars last night! and maybe this weekend I will start pulling some threads for it and hoping that the first clue will inspire me.

More about National ask your cat questions day. Do you know that cats and humans have had a long and illustrious history of cohabitation and historians believe that cats were domesticated as long as 12,000 years ago. To this day we still don’t fully understand each other!

To participate in National Answer Your Cat’s Questions Day, heighten your awareness of your cat’s needs and recognize when he or she trying to ask you something. Here’s a list of possible cat questions and answers compiled by the California Veterinary Medical Association. Enjoy!

Like I might ask AlleyCat…when is the fur on your tummy going to fully grow back in?

It has been over 2 months now since your tummy was shaved for your ultrasound! and yes she has no shame and yes she could stand to drop a few pounds, but with the steroids that she is on, that is not happening any time soon.

and until next time…keep on stitching

Canvas by Maggie! This was the most popular one that was being ordered from this new grouping that was introduced at the winter market.

This canvas by Elements in the Dream House Ventures line and I will share with you the group that was brought to life as new designs for this market. I loved them all, but I think that this was my favorite! See what you think about the rest of them…

I like this last one allot too! I think that the background color really draws me.

Speaking of color, I recently added the Bohin red scissors to my stash after using them, reviewing them for the Needlepoint Now magazine and then falling in love…so much so that I didn’t want to give them up! So look at what they did, they introduced 4 more colors. I think that I am in trouble now.

a beautiful picture taken by Kreinik girl, thank you Dena! the visitors see our beautiufl city through different eyes.

Now why does she run outside, just to turn and sit at the door and meow to come in? what am I to do with her?

and until next time…keep on stitching

Elizabeth really did design a beautiful booth! Full of color, cover copies of the past issues hung on the wall and of course the newest one fresh from the printers were there to hand out…chocolates, a little gift and of course our bag filled with a magazine and a media kit for advertisers, filled out the table.

I loved the new banner, which you could see it from the opposite end of the convention center!

We had lots of visitors including Nathan, the mastermind behind the Stella lights. He had stopped by to hook up the new “Edge” for Elizabeth so she could do some stitching. I am hooked on this light and I think that I need one! Check with your favorite needlepoint shop as I am sure that they have it or could order it for you.

Timmy, also of Stella lights stopped by later to see how the light was. Now that is customer service! I had snapped this picture of him and later he tracked me down and asked, “so what did you do with my picture?” “well I said, what would you like me to do? Facebook or Twitter?” and we Tweeted!

Speaking of tweeting, I apologize for not tweeting quite as much as I thought I would, but I was so much busier than I imagined I would be! plus at times the pictures took up to an hour to go through on Twitter, depending on where I was in the convention center, so I became very frustrated.

The sand sculpture is finished! and if you notice the scissors and all the elements of TNNA that have been worked in, knitting, crochet and of course needlepoint. The sculptors would come every in morning and mist it, so that it would not dry out and crumble before the show ended.

The TNNA photographer caught me as I stopped along the way for something or other!

Beautiful downtown San Diego as we walked across the street for lunch at the Tin Fish. Love the French Fries here!

Sylvester is hard at work supurrvising the plant watering. The plants really needed some TLC as many hadn’t been watered since before Christmas!

and until next time…keep on stitching

A great new canvas by Lisa Krause for Maggie…Lisa is also the creator of these clever frames that are made just for Maggie’s and Ewe and Eye’s canvases.

I don’t know what I like better, the frame or 

the canvas. How about you? I love, love, love this canvas and I know that I would really enjoy stitching this. But then I have to step back and really think, when would I ever have time for this? I did bring home about a dozen canvases…but who’s counting anyway? from the show for model stitching and classes on the horizon.

I kindly asked Maggie and Lisa if they would consider making small snippets of the sayings. Did you take time to read them all? They are quite clever!

As my garden grows…This is the Flower Market, a canvas by Sundance Designs that was stitched by Laura Taylor. Not a small undertaking, by any means!

Sundance created some smaller vignettes from the large canvas. This was the one that was taught at market by Laura Taylor. I signed up for this class, even though I could only stay a little while. I can’t wait to get back to stitching this canvas!

Three additional smaller canvases were created out of the larger masterpiece. A great idea for someone who doesn’t have room to have the larger canvas grace their walls or can’t commit to the time to stitch it either.

They are still working on the sand castle!

A foggy evening in San Diego. Straight ahead you are looking at the convention center. I was on my way for dinner and a little adult beverages and not necessarily in that order!

okay…what can I play with Mom?

and until next time…keep on stitching

This show was very exciting this year as I am convinced that needlepoint is growing in leaps and bounds!

Not only was there the wonderful new designs that are normally introduced at market, but there were artists joining the needlepoint world for the first time! So very exciting indeed. Now I introduced you to my star of the show yesterday, but these are my favorites of the show! His wonderful canvases can be ordered through CBK Designs. I could easily pick each and every one of the canvases and stitch them! Can you pick just one?

This is the artwork by Scott Church…and now if you Google him, please use the word Christmas in your search since there is more than 1 Scott Church out there.

These are so new that many of them are not even painted on canvas yet!

I believe that many shops felt as I did and just ordered every one of them!

Each one is better than the last!

Well of course I am going to find a cat one! What were you thinking?

I met 3, that’s right three new shop owners that are getting their places ready to open soon…and now that is exciting and I wish you the best.

The sand sculpture is coming along!

AlleyCat was enjoying the summer like weather that we have been enjoying! sorry don’t mean to rub it in.

and until next time…keep on stitching