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Cat Needlepoint Pillow from a Photo

April 8, 2011

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I worked with Susan Segalla a few months ago, to resize two of her photos of her kats (Josie and Tinker) to make into 12 x 12 needlepoint cat pillows.  She ordered two needlepoint canvases.  We discussed removing the background, but she thought it would be no problem for her to stitch over it.  See the image below, it was 10″ high, but we changed the “Advanced Settings” so the canvas would be 14 x 14.

The Cat's (Josie) Image on the Canvas

Advanced Canvas Options

Look how great Susan’s pillow looks!  She found a great brown rope trim, and matching faux sweud backing, but the other thing I love are the whiskers!  She made them from paint brush bristles.  If you are looking to make a needlepoint pillow, Peggy wrote a blog about needlepoint pillows that would be good to read.

cat needlepoint pillow

Josie the Cat in Needlepoint

Do you have any good links for making pillow’s for other stitchers? Please add your links in the comments to this post!

Cat Needlepoint Pillow

The finished Cat Needlepoint Pillow

 

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How to NeedlePoint, NeedlePaint Inspiration, Needlepoint, Pillows

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Needlepoint Kindle Covers Revisted

April 4, 2011

Written by Peggy Bond

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After finishing my first e book cover, I sat down with my Needlepaint partners to discuss design and construction. Assembling the first cover was not so simple as it could have been. Voila! We came up with a simple to assemble design which used the magnets in the Nook box as closures.

For this second Nook cover, the Needlepoint canvas was 5-1/2” by 18” designed by one of our partners and far more intricate than my previous. I had fun needlepointing this canvas as I could use lots of different stitches.

Needlepaint Design

Once stitched and blocked, I cut the black cotton lining material to 6-1/2” by 20”, which includes a ½” seam allowance on the sides and a 1” allowance on the ends.

Lining template

With right sides together, sew the lining and needlepoint canvas together along last row of thread. This should leave an approximate 1” seam allowance on the lining. Trim canvas to ½” , turn, and fold along seam line. Place magnets as shown on template above and stitch around each to hold them in place.

Magnet Placement

With magnets in place and work turned to right side, sew side seams along finished end of the canvas. Trim to ¼” and bind with matching bias tape.

 

Finished Cover Side1

 


Finished Cover Side2

 

There are many variations which one could make to this sleek cover:

  • Replace the bias tape with a fancy braid — my suggestion which was overruled by my Needlepaint partner who will be using the cover.
  • Add handle which my 93-year old mother is convinced is essential.
  • Eliminate the bias binding by making the Needlepaint canvas 1/2″ wider. Fold canvas in half width-wise with wrong side showing. Sew side seams, trim to 1/4″, and turn. Repeat for lining, but do not turn. Fold lining over 1″ to the outside and place magnet or other closure option. Insert lining into Needlepaint cover and sew linig to canvas.

If your e-reader is not a Nook and you don’t have magnets, the closure could also be made with Velcro which is available in several different colors and as self-adhesive or sew-on varieties.

Create your own custom needlepoint cover at NeedlePaint.com !

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Making Embroidery Floss Stitch Evenly in Needlepoint

April 1, 2011

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6 Strand Embroidery Floss

We recently had an issue with 6 strand cotton embroidery floss that I think others may find helpful.

A customer told me that they felt the embroidery floss we supply with our needlepoint kits was ‘messy’.  After doing some research (they called the shop owner a Phoenix Needlepoint) they found that if you pull apart the 6 strands, then run them back together in a strait line that the stitches are much neater.

I’ve not heard this before, but I checked with Peggy, and she mentioned that she does something similar.

“After I cut the thread to a 12-15 inch length, I always run it through my fingers to get any twists out of it. This makes it lay flat and even.”

“The other issue might be the direction in which she is doing the stitch. You want whenever possible to bring your thread from the back to the front in a hole that does not already have thread in it…then you go from front to back into the hole with thread. If you come from the back in a hole with thread there is drag on your thread which can cause irregularity.”

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Custom Dog NeedlePoint Pillow Canvases

March 25, 2011

Written by needlepaint

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We were a big hit at an office recently.  One of our customers told people in their office about NeedlePaint and our custom needlepoint canvases…

Within 3 days, we had 3 dog pillow needlepoint canvases under way!

We all agreed that 12.25″ x 12.25″ will make a good size pillow, and the pillow forms are easily available at JoAnn Fabrics or Michaels.

From there, we stuck to 14 point mesh since it will be faster to stitch on this size canvas.  And then the fun started…

I was thinking that it would be cool just to put the dog’s profile on the pillow and remove the background (this will be faster to stitch, too).  We also added borders as to frame the image, and this was a big hit!
In the end, we had three completely different designs!

#1.  The original image and original background, with a double border
#2.  The dog’s face, with name below the face
#3.  The dog’s profile, with a simple border and green background

#3. The dog profile with a simple border and background ( original image removed)

They all are special, and it was fun.  I have designed another fun background and will be happy to do more, just email me your ideas!

A fun deisgn for a black dog!

All three needlepoint canvases are under way right now, so we are waiting for images, but I’m guessing it will be a few more months.  One of the needlepointers just emailed me an image of their last kit we made for them!

***We are now showing designs on Etsy!  Check out our designs at our NeedlePoint Shop.

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NeedlePaint Inspiration, Needlepoint, Pillows

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How to Needlepoint The Ring Bearer Pillow

March 15, 2011

Written by needlepaint

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I’ve made a custom needlepoint kit for my wedding!  It came out well, you can see the preview of the stitched canvas I uploaded last week.  The letters were a bit fuzzy, but after looking at the canvas, these will be easy to do.

Custom Ring Bearer Pillow Stitched Preview

The NeedlePaint needlepoint kits include all the floss, stitch guide, and needle.

Ring Bearer Needlepoint Kit

So, where does a beginner start?  I’ve been wanting to learn needlepoint, and this is a great reason to start.  What I’ve found are some great instructional pages and videos!

I started at About Needlepoint and came across Susan Battle’s how to needlepoint videos.  The videos are a much easier starting place for me, as Peggy is out of town, and I don’t have anybody to walk me through counted stitch guides.

The continental stitch will be perfect for doing all the sides and boarders, so I’ll start there and update the blog with as much helpful information for beginners or people who have not stitched in a long while.

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Needlepoint Ring Bearer Pillow

March 5, 2011

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My fiancé was looking at pictures at stylemepretty.com to get ideas for our wedding this summer and came across an amazing needlepoint pillow!

Ring Bearer Pillow

Ring Bearer Pillow

I love the idea of a ring bearer pillow, so I have gotten to work on designing our own custom needlepoint kits to make a pillow for the wedding.  I don’t want the pillow to be too large, so we’ll need to work on a way be sure that our names fit.

This also got me thinking that these are great wedding gifts!  Once I get project underway, I’d love to help more people design ring bearer pillows.  I’m also working out how people who would like to give the gift, but don’t have the time to make it themselves, could buy a finished pillow.  I’m hoping to find somebody in Colorado…

The size I’m making is 5” x 7”, which we plan to leave in the house as decoration.  A 10 x 10 will also be fine, and may be more practical, but I want something a little smaller for my nephew.  You can see the preview of my design below, after I uploaded it to Needlepaint!

Custom Ring Bearer Pillow

I had to adjust some things, and I’m a sailor, so I put in a square knot, but I’m excited about this!  I’ll upload images as the project continues…

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NeedlePaint Inspiration, Needlepoint, Pillows

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The Needlepoint Mini-Brick Door Stop

March 3, 2011

Written by Peggy Bond

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My great-aunt, Mrs. Jo, loved to do needlepoint. She was prolific! She was always looking for something new to do. My mother, sister, and I would bring her printed pillow tops, bell pulls, and seat covers. When she finished these, and if we were slow in bringing her new projects, she would use the left over yarn to make brick covers with random triangle patterns. The covered bricks were our door stops. So, I didn’t have slamming doors until the covers wore out recently.

Mrs. Jo has been dead for over 30 years. I was on my own to make new ones. Bricks are BIG! On my trip to Home Depot to buy a brick, I discovered that all bricks are not created equal and there is a myriad of size choices, including a small “paver.” I wasn’t sure that the paver would be heavy enough to hold the door open, so I bought one for a test. To my delight, it worked – less time, fewer stitches, less yarn, less canvas. Voila, the mini-brick!

The pavers are 6” x 3” x 1.8”. The overall dimension of the design on my Needlepaint–custom needlepoint canvas was 10” x 7” and the design was inspired by Dover Publications Celtic Art books with CD-ROM.

I framed up my canvas and went to work. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the 14 point canvas worked up, compared to the larger brick I had finished previously. Also, having used a large scroll frame(12” x 12”), the canvas remained square and need very little blocking.

I used a variation of Henry Babcock’s instructions for finishing the brick , which was that I wrapped the brick in flannel to protect my Needlepaint canvas. Then I followed Henry’s directions. Now I have one less door slamming closed.

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St Patrick’s Day NeedlePoint

February 21, 2011

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Instead of just needlepointing a normal photo, this week I was thinking that it could be fun to add a theme around an image on a custom needlepoint kit.

St. Patrick’s Day is a great opportunity!

I was thinking a clover with your dog in the middle would look pretty cool!  It took me a little while to find what I wanted, but as I’m learning to edit photos better, I found that taking the face works pretty well.

St Patricks Day Doggie Artwork

Below, we have just 10 colors on a 12” square canvas.  I did 18 mesh in this case, to catch the details in the dogs eyes.

St. Patricks Day Needlenoint Doggie Kit

Of course the ideas here are unlimited!

If you are interested in having us help to design a background photo, please contact us, we’d be happy to talk over some ideas and help create your design for you.  We offer this service free of charge on orders larger than 12 x 12”.

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Amazing Photo’s Make Great NeedlePoint Kits

February 8, 2011

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Recently, I was came across some amazing stitching work done by Su Embroidery Studio.  I found their work at Mary Corbet’s Needle ‘N Thread blog.  If you have time, you need to see these images!  This got me thinking about how many beautiful animal portrait needlepoint kits we’ve made at NeedlePaint.com and how thrilled the response has been by our customers.

Normally, people will send in the best images of their pet, but I think that there is a lot more opportunity for people who are looking for other types of special projects.

One of the great things about NeedlePaint.com, is that we are 100% custom, so if you can’t find great needlepoint kits of your favorite animals, you can have us make it for you!  I’m using the bald eagle as an example.  I searched and I could not find anything really good.  You can see my search results below.

Product Search Results on Google

After that, I just looked for images of “bald eagle head”, and found thousand of spectacular images.  Please be careful not to select a copyrighted image, if you cannot find a free image, then I recommend going to iStockPhoto.com There you can view thousands of animal photos that cost under $5.  You can purchase the XSmall size.

Source Image for Bald Eagle Canvas

Next, I uploaded this picture onto NeedlePaint and look how great it looks!

NeedlePaint Preview on 12 x 12" white 14 mesh canvas

I can imagine thousands canvases for people who love ducks, cows, and all types of animals.  Istockphoto really has a great selection of both farm and wild animals, just type in the name and enjoy!

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E-Reader Needlepoint Cover

February 4, 2011

Written by Peggy Bond

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According to shopping reports, Christmas 2010 was the Christmas of the e-reader, and I was the recipient of one – a Barnes & Noble color Nook. On Christmas day with e-reader in hand, I was not only excited about the present but itching to get started on a new project – a personalized  needlepoint cover for my Nook.

I blocked out a simple three-color pattern for 18-mesh canvas and decided to use a trianglepoint stitch made popular by Sherlee Lantz in her 1976 book Trianglepoint, because it covers the canvas quickly and I wanted to get the cover finished before I scratched the screen of my new Nook. The canvas was the same width of the e-reader and an inch longer.  I planned the cover to be like a narrow box with a flap at the top which would fold over the top and fasten to the back with two snaps.

I was in such a hurry to start that I forgot to photograph the canvas before I started. Sorry!

The photo above shows the finished canvas with the piping, backing and gusset fabric, and white fleece for lining which I used. The fleece lining serves a dual purpose. It protects the screen from being scratched and it also cleans the screen as the Nook slides in and out (Figure 2).

If I were to make this design again, I would extend the length of the needlepoint cover by another inch to have a longer flap. But mine is done now and I am a happy traveler with it.

I have to confess that I don’t read all my books on my e-reader, and I probably never will. But I travel a lot, and when I travel I always take books and needlepoint along. Now, my suitcase is lighter with reading materials on the Nook, including my essential needlepoint reference book The Needlepoint Book by Jo Ippolito Christensen

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