Stitching Every Day

Lucky Jackson is a self taught artist residing in Peterborough, Ontario. Recently she decided that she was going to fulfill one of her longtime goals: to create something every day! For 365 days she is going to create something and post it on her blog. You can click on the title of this blog to go to her blog and see more of the photos of her finished pieces. Also check out her website for more information about herself.

Her pieces have all been visually exciting and fun to look at. I love seeing the photo of the embroidered and appliqued piece and then reading the caption. Most have a funny little story that really adds to the charm of the pieces!


This lovely piece is called "Joan Love" and represents Joan from Mad Men. It is hand embroidered on vintage fabric with applique. I love the way she combines the different threads and stitches with the fabric choice for the background to create a piece that really represents Joan!


Frequently she has theme weeks, where for each day she'll stitch a piece that has to do with a larger topic. The picture above (one of my favorites!) represents one of the days she illustrated different jobs she had in the past. She named this series "Take this job and shove it week." I loved her story behind this piece and instead of paraphrasing, I'll just share her words: "I worked in a bakery and got to be around the smell of baking bread.... Yum right? The only down side was that my apartment at the time was located above another bakery... there was no escape from the smell though delicious it was . Maybe that's when I started having problems tolerating wheat ;). And no my uniform wasn't as cute as this one."


This last piece is also one of my favorites because it has such a warm feeling. I love the hand-quilted top and the feet sticking out. One of my favorite things about all of her pieces is her composition. She really has a knack for combining different shapes and textures to really make the whole piece look cohesive.

This series and each post I see on her blog inspires me to do more of my personal work every day. I look forward to seeing all of her future pieces and hope that they have inspired you to do a little bit of stitching each day! :)

Piano Benches

If you have a piano and would like a way to make your piano bench stand out, a great thing to do is to have a piano bench made! We have had a number of customers stitch piano bench covers, and have been enthralled with the results!


The most recent piano bench is one that our custom painter specially painted for her. It is a reproduction of the "Heavenly Chorus" panel from Klimt's Beethoven Frieze in Vienna. You can see a section of the original painting above.


Stephanie has come a long ways since last fall, when we had it painted for her, and is about half way done. She sent us an update with a picture of it, and it looks great! You can see the picture above. I'm sure that it will look fabulous once it's been finished into a piano bench!


This spring we had another customer who is a very prolific stitcher have a piano bench finished. She chose to use Bargello for this one. It looked great! I love the colors, and am sure that it looks fabulous next to her piano!

We just got a piano bench in stock. Our painter is very qualified, and has the ability to paint exquisite canvases per your directions. If you are interested in having one painted for you, or perhaps would like to take a look through our catalogs and pick one out, come on in! We'd love to help you! Also feel free to ask about our finishing! We have finishers who can finish your piece into a pre-existing bench, or you can even have a custom bench made! There are so many options for piano benches. It's fun to see all the ways you can make one special and personal!

Small Business Saturday

November 26, 2011 is "Small Business Saturday," a day when America comes together to celebrate the Shop Small movement and support small businesses like ours.

To help make the day a huge success, American Express is giving Cardmembers who register their card for the Small Business Saturday a $25 statement credit when they spent $25 or more at businesses like ours.

Don't miss on this opportunity to buy products you love and need for your needlepoint projects, and also get a savings in your credit card statement! Visit their facebook page today to register your card for this great event! We hope to see you on Saturday, November 26th!

Needlepoint Your Special Memories

As you may know from reading our previous blog entries, we have a fantastic custom painter on staff who can create any needlepoint canvas that you would like. This is a great example of how to take a special memory and memorialize it in needlepoint.


Recently we had a customer by the name of Alison who did just that! Her daughter got married this year, and Alison loved the bouquet so much that she wanted to do a needlepoint pillow of it! From a photo of the bouquet, shown above, our painter was able to create a detailed sketch.


After Alison approved the sketch, our painter converted the sketch to a beautiful painting large enough that once it had been stitched, it would be a lovely pillow.


As you can see from the photo above, Alison stitched this gorgeous pillow up, and is very happy with it! Our finishers were able to put the final touches on this special project, giving it a gusset using the fabulous special fabrics we have on hand from a local high end fabric shop, and incorporating the same colored threads she used in her piece to make a lovely cord for it.

This project was a work of love, and I am sure that Alison's daughter just loves it! If you would like to do a project that is special to you, and would like some ideas, or need help in making it come to life, give us a call at the shop, or email Jia, our lead painter at painting@rittenhouseneedlepoint.com.

Happy stitching!

Focus on: Accentuate

Accentuate is a gorgeous poly thread that is comprised of 70% polyamide and 30% metallic polyester. It is sold in 50 meter spools, in 148 different colors. This very fine metallic filament is very strong and flexible. You can use it alone or blended with other threads to give your color a little bit of a pop of glitter. You would use this filament in a 2:1 equivalent. If you're using Accentuate alone, you should select simpler stitches. It would be a waste of time to execute a complicated stitch with sparkly metallic threads like Accentuate because the pattern would not be apparent.


Use the Ashley stitch, shown in the photo above, to create a lovely background, a special clothing pattern, or wallpaper. In the example above, Stephen used 12 strands of Accentuate by itself to create the effect of this stitch. It's nice to see how beautiful this thread comes out when you're just using it by itself.


Another stitch that uses this lovely thread is the Framed Reverse Scotch Stitch, which you can see above. This stitch would look lovely in a design with a tablecloth, a pattern on curtains, and rugs. Once again, the thread is not blended with another color, but is placed next to another contrasting color. This little pop of shimmer really makes the yellow pop and gives this stitch added character.


The Raised Maltese Cross, seen above, is another fantastic example of a stitch that this thread really shines in. The combination of the loveliness of this stitch as well as the beautiful colors that Accentuate comes in, would make this an excellent stitch to use with Accentuate to create a patch of flowers or shrubbery.

Try this lovely thread out for yourself. By all means let us know how it works for you, and what you use it for! We love to see everyone's projects!

Stitch of the Week: Rosemary

This past week we held a Thread Tasting class. In this class, we give you a goodie bag with samples of five to six types of thread that we carry. All of the threads that Stephen chose were beautiful. With each of the threads, Stephen also gave a stitch lesson.

One of my favorite ribbons we carry is Neon Rays Plus. I wrote a blog all about it back in August.

The stitch Stephen used to show how to incorporate this ribbon into your next project was the Rosemary stitch. This is a beautiful stitch that really catches your eye and can make your piece look special.



This stitch is completed in three parts. For the first part, which you can see in the image above, you will use basketweave to complete each square.


Once you have completed a 3 x 3 group of these squares, you will stitch two straight stitches over three intersections, following the guide above.


Finally, once you have finished stitching the straight stitches, you will complete the stitch by doing a small cross stitch in the middle of each cross, as shown above.

As you can see in the stitched sample at the top of this blog, this stitch looks best when using three different colors for each of the parts. A cotton thread, such as DMC or Hylas, or Mandarine Floss, shown in this past blog post, is perfect for the first part where you use the basketweave stitch. Use Neon Rays + for the second step to make the straight stitches (or "petals" as I like to call them) really pop. For the final step, use a complimentary color of the petal.

This stitch would look great as a border, a pattern on clothing, or used as a square in a stitch sampler. As I've mentioned, this stitch would also look great as a little flower patch.

I hope you give this stitch a try, and feel free to send us a picture of how you incorporate it into your piece!

Stitch of the Week: Nobuko

The Nobuko stitch is a great stitch for creating special effects in your piece. It is a textured stitch that is worked in alternating long and short diagonal stitches, and is worked in rows similar to the Continental Stitch. It can be worked in a single color or multiple colors by row.


To stitch the Nobuko, you will work from right to left. Bring your needle up through the canvas and over one intersection (1-2 in the diagram shown). After that, you will bring your needle up one row under the first (3), and then you will carry the stitch over three intersections (3-4 in the diagram shown). The next stitch will be over one section, and then you will continue in the same way across the row you are stitching. When you are stitching the next row (as you can see in the picture below) you will be working in the opposite direction.


There are a lot of great threads you can use to really emphasize this attractive stitch. Flair is a very pretty ribbon thread that you can use to create snow. Threadworx Overdyed thread is great for stitching sky and water. To create snow, sky or water, you can use Silk and Ivory and Silk and Ivory Stardust. To create fish scales, you can use Perle cotton in either #3 or #5, and you can also use Trebizond.