M M to M a M M
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the title is MARIANNE MANAGES TO MAKE A MASSIVE MISTAKE
This will be a short post. All cute and clever alliteration aside, it seems I have really done it this time.
I had my weekly tech session with Zac The Tech, who I used to be very fond of, yesterday and asked him why my Google Search rankings were dropping like dead flies in a cold snap.
He went and looked at my Google Analytics and said my visit and bounce rate were excellent so he went to look at the web site Admin. site where I do it all, everything that shows on my web site.
AWWWWK! I must have misunderstood when I was told how to configure what I wrote for my keywords (how search engines find me) my meta descriptions (what you see when you search for me). I did them all wrong. WRONG!
You are supposed to use small caps except for the first word of sentences and proper names.
I capitalized the first letter of every word.
Zac The Tech (who I used to adore) emailed me the directions he originally sent me and made me read them out loud while we were on the phone (AWK). He was right. MY ERROR.
Now, each and every listing and category on nn.com (why bother with the link?) has it’s own keywords and meta descritptions. 425 keystrokes per listings (AWK, again) and I have to fix them all, letter by letter.
I also have to move by July 31st.
So…(notice no happy pictures today, not joyful needlepoint canvas blabber?)
I will be around, I will be here needlepoint wise BUT I HAVE TO FIX THIS
AWK> AWK> Jeez> AWK (internet blog version of really bad swear words)
Please, do feel sorry for me.
Tiny Small Blog Post
I want to go watch the second part of the BBC movie “Shooting the Past”. It is one of my favorites BBC productions, an absorbing story. I want to go stitch, I am unusually eager to stitch tonight.
I have fixed the letters on my 5 X 7 inch Snow White Stitch and Frame Sample, it is much improved.
I have begun a new coloration of the Zig Zag Variation #3 (psychedelic zig zag) with colors whose changes you can actually see in a photo. I have just begun it.
I think I am taking this to pale cream and spring green, we shall see.
It will be better then this.
Which is pretty in real life but looks like a big nothing in my pictures.
I had a (rare) brain storm and added the Kanji for LIFE to my Ferris Wheel canvas. I think the reason I kept putting off listing it for sale is was it was missing something, I just did not know it. This is it, now
A Ferris Wheel is a wonderful analogy for Life, if I don’t say so myself (and I do say so myself).
This is how it looked before
I think this is better.
Keith is home, the books are put away, He did 2 new canvases for me today. I will list them tomorrow and blather about them then. I like them alot.
Marianne’s real life update. Mr Landlord has not responded to my counter offer. I will not settle this lease with him unless he agrees to let me use 1/2 of my existing deposit as the payoff. He has promised to , eventually, return our entire deposit, but I do not believe I will ever see any of it unless he agrees to this.
I have not changed the money he asks for, just the timing of when he is paid and I am refunded.
Keith is (kinda, a little, afraid to be too much) confident he passed the Category 4 Vibration Analyst test on this, his second try. He says if he did not, he can’t. He can’t study any harder then he already has. He has given almost 7 full months to this studying every moment he is not at work or asleep.
Needless to say, I hope he passes. I have given up almost 7 months of husbandly companion and watching good movies together while I stitch time, not to mention the financial burden of the class, the tests and all the traveling to them.
Wish him luck, please.
More soon (you have been warned).
CCCChanges (everybody sing along)
It has been brought to my attention (think about the old joke about how to get a mule’s attention? Use a big stick).
it has been ever so gently suggested that an disportionate number of the needlepoint canvases & kits sold on NewNeedlepoint.com are large.
I am told that the current market favors smaller needlepoint canvases. I believe this is correct.
This smaller size preference represents how busy we have all become (except me, probably). We, many of us, no longer have the time or needlepoint ambition to stitch the big guys. Like my 16 X 17 Inch Victorian Heart & Doves.
There is a somewhat forgiving caveat in this, the issue seems to have alot to do with the amount of background area. I am told, by those who know more about the current needlepoint scene than me which is pretty much everyone, that the only bigger designs that are selling well now are the more complex and less background designs. That means I am on safe(er) ground with my Roses, Roses, Roses collage
Or maybe the Square Star Needlepoint Kit. It is 13 X 13 Inches but done as either a quilt type square or as an optical, there is zero background in this design.
I tell you, all this changing is exhausting, besides having to sing that darn *ccchanges* song each time. It might be OK if I could eliminate the dance steps I am compelled to do as well.
Moving on from that bit of silliness, I have nipped in the listed overall sizes of some of my Needlepoint canvases, but you still have the option (meaning extra canvas at the edges of the design) to stitch them slightly bigger, if you are inclined that way (as I am).
I have narrowed the focus of my 20 X 20 Inch size Bargello Needlepoint, eliminating several of the possibilities from my listings.
I will, of course, still make these other patterns for a 20 X 20 inch format, on request (who am I to turn down business?)
As soon as I can get Zac The Tech’s attention (again we revert to the Big Stick) I will post my already created new 8 X 8 Inch Bargello Nedlepoint Category. I created it for those of us who want to try Bargello Needlepoint or Florentine Embroidery Bargello Needlepoint (that’s a mouthful, isn’t it?) without making a huge investment in money or time.
These are being listed at a starting price of $110.00 which is pretty good for canvas, threads, graphed directions and establishing line stitched plus free shipping (how can you resist?)
Not all of the 8 X 8 inch canvases are listed there yet (if I can get the category added to the web site today). i did just 4 last night.
I know, I am asking a lot of rhetorical questions here. So, another turn of this particular
screw (Henry James reference, that).
I always like to finish up with some of my own news, I know no one gives a **** but I can’t help myself.
Mr Landlord has made us a “not totally unreasonable” settlement offer on the lease. If he agrees to my counter offer, which does not change the amount of money, just the timing of when it is paid, I will be moving ASAP.
Keith flew off to Harrisburg to take his BIG Category 4 test last night. I hope he 1) passes, 2) comes home as the “regular” Keith and not this obsessed studier who has no time for me 3) deals with the now 23 canvas backlog of designs to trace for nn.com.
My friend Jane, over at the Chilly Hollow Needlepoint Adventure blog is doing a terrific new project, Elizabeth Mumford’s Cape Cod Dogs.
I had never heard of this designer before or this series (and me being from Massachusetts). It makes me wish I had the time and energy to stitch someone else’s stuff.
Then again, there I go promoting someone else’s work and blog. Get out that big stick and whap me until I smarten up, please.
Try, Try Again
Anyone who took a guess on how long Keith would take to re-do the “If I’d killed him when I met him, I’d be out of jail by now” canvas and guessed 2.5 weeks wins!
The winner of my no-contest contest gets…absolutely nothing! (what did you expect?)
The new, improved canvas is done, the colors assembled and it is listed on NewNeedlepoint.com
(see, I am still being a good little do-bee and doing my links. Is anyone else out there old enough to remember Miss Jean and her Romper Room good do-bees?)
I know, it does not look like much, on the hoof, so to speak (I am full of beans today) but there is more here than appears at first glance.
The layout is good, much improved over the last one. The pleasing heart shapes are well laid out. The text is good. This is done on 14 mesh canvas using Paternayan Needlepoint Wool so it will work up quickly. I have left plenty of room around the design so a layer or 2 of box border could be added, these are all good things.
But my intention was to make this a show-stopper of a design, but how that is to be is not readily apparent.
My idea is that each of the hearts be done is a different decorative stitch. This is the perfect format to show off those wonderful stitches we have all been so diligent about learning. Chosen well, these amazing fancy stitches combined with the stitched letters and pale gold background, will indeed be gorgeous.
There are 7 hearts, one of the smaller ones is designed to be a gold heart. I have not done any decorative stitching with metallic thread yet, you are on your own with that one.
The colors for the other hearts are Ruby Red, Deep Raspberry and a wonderful Clear Pink. (the Raspberry did not photograph well, it is indeed a true raspberry)
The script is Charcoal Gray and the background is Muted Pale Gold. I go back and forth on whether the background should be a fancy stitch or not. I do know, from hard experience, that the area around the letters should be a box of Tent Stitch. Even Basketweave gets tricky around lettering.
Beyond that, I don’t know. My instinct is to suggest a basketweave background, to contrast with the wonderful exotic stitch hearts or at least one of the simpler background stitches like Gobelin Filling, Parisian, Bargello or the like, either in straight or diagonal stitch.
(whew, that was exhausting, have I made my point?)
I have 2 new Stitch & Frame Needlepoint kits now, making my grand total 4.
I love this one, I have wanted to do this as a needlepoint almost as long as nn.com has existed. The smaller format makes it easy. The quote is
“I AM FAIRLY CERTAIN THAT GIVEN A CAPE AND A NICE TIARA,
I COULD SAVE THE WORLD”
The super hero (or heroine) picture I used is below, I changed her hair from blonde to light brown, it went better with her pink suit.
This is sized for a 5 X 7 inch frame.
The next one is one of my much loved Kanji Designs.
It is a Love Kanji done for a 4 X 6 inch frame. The Kanji is Ruby Red (I do adore that color), the frame around it is Deep Purple, the background is Moonlight White (which also seems to be my color de jour) and the *flourish* is Gold Metallic from the DMC Precious Metals Collection.
This design in this size should be stitched with Tent Stitch for the Kanji and the surrounding area, the background should be also tent stitch (it could be basketweave but it hardly seems worth it for such a small area). The Purple frame could be a square format Decorative stitch or Gobelin stitch or similar, that would make a nice contrast.
Later today I will post the Ferris Wheel canvas. I keep meaning to do it and keep putting it off, no idea why.
Now on to my favorite part, my other unrelated and unimportant to the rest of the world news. My landlord is still a stinker. After 30+ years as a homeowner it is beyond weird having to negotiate with this guy to break this lease. AWK!
I have a design backlog of 15 canvases waiting for Keith to get to them. He flies to Harrisburg, PA this weekend to take the Vibration Institute Category 4 test, finally!
Harrisburg is such an odd place to have it, people come from all over the world for these classes and tests, could they have picked anywhere less accessible? He flies to Baltimore and then drives.
I hope he passes it, these last few months of his non-stop studying and his “don’t bother me” attitude have run their course (from a wifey point of view).
And, this one is the bomb. I have started another blog. Totally unrelated to this one, except for my penchant for babbling in print.
It is called *Fat Fashion Forward* subtitled
“A Fat Fashionista Goes On & On…Endlessly It Seems”.
That is my other persona, I am an Fat Lady, obsessed with fashion and pissed at the fashion industry which would prefer to ignore me or dress me in Nylon Mesh BabyDoll Tops (one wonders how far that really is from the bad old days when Lane Bryant Floral Polyester was all there was for us to wear).
I really do love this whole blog thing.
Like We Needed That
I subscribe to The Atlantic Magazine. It comes out every other month and is usually interesting enough to justify the time spent reading it but this issue…..
(smoke coming out my ears)
The issue dated July/August 2009 with *The Ideas Issue: How To Fix The World* on the cover has an article beginning on page 44 titled “Home Economics”. In it the author, Megan McArdle, discusses the ways many Americans are coping with this new *depression*.
She writes that people do not eat out as much, go to movies or spend on entertainment like they used to. She discusses how they seem to be compensating by buying premium foods to replicate lost restaurant meals and how low-end flat screen TV fly out of Wal-Mart stores.
She discusses how Pioneer Electronics has discontinued making their top-of-the-line flat screen TVs (now, I have one, 7 years old and it represents some of the best money I ever spent, a well made, quality TV) then Ms. McArdle talk goes on to say that Suze Orman et al do not question their callers on how often they entertain, fly home to visit family or …
(and I quote) “whether their needlepoint is taking up too much of their disposable income”
I swear, she writes this. Then she goes on: “(Don’t laugh – I can testify that needlepoint, like many other crafts, is surprisingly expensive)”
Thanks alot Megan honey. As it is business is slow for even the established internet needlework designers and retailers, why don’t you just nail that coffin lid right on down now?
And, it is not always or even often true.
Yes, you can go to Ehrman Tapestry and buy a $1500 limited edition Kaffee Fassett wall hanging kit with gold threads or to one of the very flossy. glossy high end web sites and spend a fortune or go to a needlepoint store where they will make sure you do not get out the door without spending $300. +.
Or go to pitiful little NewNeedlepoint.com where for $90 you can get a already assembled and ready to stitch needlepoint kit Like Dancing Penguins
Or an Original Design Needlepoint Canvas like Lisianthus
Lisianthus can be bought as a Canvas alone for $55, or a Kit with the colors carefully chosen and assembled by yours truly for $120 or You can Choose Your Own Colors and I will assemble them as a Custom Color Choice Kit for you for the same $120.00.
Or maybe for $170 a 16 X 16 Inch Custom Color Choice Florentine Embroidery Bargello in the beautiful Spires pattern in your Choice of Custom Colors including the (difficult to do) establishing line already stitched for you in one of the colors of your choice.
Or Maybe for $135 a 12 X 12 Zig Zag Bargello Needlepoint Design in your own Choice of 5 Custom Colors or choose 9 different colors to be used in the pattern for just $150.00. Again, with the establishing line stitched for you
So, I am hopping mad.
Thanks a lot Megan McArdle, how about I do my next blog on how magazine writers are obsolete and the only genuine journalism these days comes from the many Blog Writers on the net, we have the timely pulse of the nation, with no publishing time lag to slow us down.
MMYMM
The actual title of this blog entry, which I have abbreviated, is Marianne Makes Yet More Mistakes.
That is not strictly true however, the mess up is Keith’s but the unstitching of teeny tiny weenie stitches in 18 mesh is my job. Keith did not get the lettering absolutely straight on the first line of this sample 5 X 7 inch Stitch & Frame Needlepoint Canvas
The “I used” are are down 1 stitch too low and the “White”, in Snow White is up 1 stitch too high. All 3 words and their backgrounds have to be picked out and re-done, around the offending letters, as well.
If you look at my previous blog entry, you will see that the misalignment of the letters does not show up until I added the background stitching.
The highlighting of YET more mistakes was not the original purpose of this blog. Actually this is a “blog of discovery” (doesn’t that sound grand?).
While stitching this sample I discovered it was difficult, bordering on impossible, to do any counted thread decorative stitch around stitched script letters. Even a simple Parisian or Bargello stitch just gets too messed up in the tiny twists and fills one must stitch around script.
In the listings for the first two items in my new Stitch & Frame Category I had suggested these were good candidates for background fancy stitches. Now I am not sure. Even simple Basketweave Stitch is tricky around stitched letters. I found the basic straight across and up and down of Tent Stitch to be the perfect stitch here.
Once I unpick (moan, groan, complain) and redo the letters and and finish the Tent Stitched area around the quote I was planning to complete the background in Parisian Stitch. Now I am not sure.
I will keep you, my loyal 1.5 blog readers, updated on my (pitiful) progress as this sample goes along.
So, I mess up and you all get the benefit of my boo boos with none of the work.
In a humorous side note. After all my big talk about all the wonderful 4 X 6 and 5 X 7 inch picture frames I had in my closets, it turns out I don’t. I thought I did but they must have gone during a previous downsizing. As we move more and more often for Keith’s jobs, I find I am willing to keep and move less and less stuff.
I am afraid I do not remember scuttling my picture frame collection, I had some nice ones too.
So, I had to go to the mall yesterday and buy a few 4 X 6 and 5 X 7 inch frames. My reaction to the whole mall thing is a “sea change” from previous years, for me.
I used to be a true Mallista (except I did not wear my hair in the *mall-hair* style). I used to be able to plot my mall rampages using the most efficient route to garner the most junk in the shortest amount of time before it was time to go eat (essential part of any mall outing).
Now, due to the “miracle” of internet shopping (Nordstrom & Bloomingdales On-line, Oh My!) I rarely go to malls anymore, I have lost many of my “hunter-gatherer” mall skills.
My Needlepoint Canvas Creation Pipeline has a massive *Keith Draws The Designs on the Canvas* blockage right now, I thought I might post some of my current designs, in their raw form, to show you where I am going with my next round of needlepoint canvases and kits for NewNeedlepoint.com.
This is another, smaller optical graphic design for my Graphics Category (or quilt type design, your choice of interpretation)
I really like these designs.
The next one is a Kanji Needlepoint in a whole different format (even different from the ones I recently failed to do well). The Kanji is JOY, I think this graphic expresses joy.
This is a larger quote canvas, using a larger version of the corner border used on the 5 X 7 Inch Mae West “You Only Live Once” Stitch and Frame Needlepoint on NewNeedlepoint.com.
These next few are new Stitch & Frame Needlepoints designs.
and this new Mae West
I don’t have a picture of this next one yet. Keith has promised me a 5 X 7 inch Ms Superheo (or should I say Ms. Superheroine?) canvas today. There are capes and tiaras involved.
OK, I am off to watch a movie and laboriously remove stitches from Snow White. I think this calls for a Olivia DeHavilland weepie or at the very least, Bette Davis.
you know what? It really can be a pain in the butt to be a neurotic needlepoint perfectionist. BTW, notice I am still doing all my links? I usually do them after the blog is written, I am not as *on top of things* as I pretend to be.
Something New
With major Thank Yous to Janet Perry and Jane of The Chilly Hollow Needlepoint Adventure Blog for thier combined ideas and inspiration, I opened my new category, Stitch & Frame Needlepoint, this morning.
I have been ready since yesterday but the link between the web site category button and the category I made in my website Administration thingie was not done. I caught my talented tech advisor, Zac, at 8am this morning (PST, I am EST) and while still half asleep he made the link for me. He is a good guy.
There are only 2 kits so far, the sample one is almost done,
This is on a canvas sized to fit, when finished, in a standard 5 X 7 inch picture frame.
I don’t know about you but I have a pile of these in my closet, standing empty and ready.
I think the background will be a creamy white or maybe moonlight white in a slanted Parisian stitch.
This is the result of Jane’s excellent advice, that people do seem to want to stitch smaller things and Janet Perry’s brilliant suggestion that I do my quote canvases in a format to fit into photo frames. She suggests that people like to self-frame.
So, here it is, the first two offerings, A quote John Lennon from the Beatles song “All You Need Is Love”: “There is nothing you can know that isn’t known” There will be more as soon as I can get Keith (my husband and resident bottleneck to my needlepoint canvas creation process) to draw my designs on the canvas. (all together now: NAG!)
This is sized for a 4 X 6 inch frame. I tried doing one of these designs on a 16 mesh canvas. The mesh was too large to get an accurate drawing of any design on such a small size, so it seems like all of these will be 18 mesh mono canvas. The 8 X 10 inch size could possibly be 16 mesh, I will decide when I do the first one.
The John Lennon quote kit is designed using in Hyacinth Blues with a Moonlight White background but I do offer to switch colors, if the buyer asks. The design has a very Art Deco feel to it, to me.
This is my second, another of my beloved Mae West quotes “You only live once, but if you do right, once is enough” I admire Mae West for her accomplishments, her open mind in a repressed time and her sassy, on-point wit.
This one is sized for a 5 X 7 inch frame. I have assembled this kit using somewhat similar, but not exact colors, to the colors used in the design the decorative partial border.
I hope you all ( all my 1.5 readers) like the concept and the new category of Needlepoint Kits I am doing. They will all be done as kits but I am usually (often, at least) willing to switch colors (as long as the Color Use Guide is not already done, I dislike having to redo them, they are not easy). I am always willing to change out background colors.
I was affected by Janet Perry’s blog news that Lee Designs was going out of business after all these years. I have happily stitched several Lee Design Needlepoint canvases over the years. I always found the stitch painting flawless and the color use followable (I know that is not really a word but it works so well here).
In other, totally unrelated news of interest to no one but myself. We will soon be moving. We live in a rented house on the west coast of Florida. We moved here for Keith’s new job, when the economy’s fatal swoon forced him to come out of retirement.
We rented our house on the other coast out and rented one here.
It is an nice enough looking house, it turns out that in my ignorance of the area, I am paying way too much rent, but that is my fault.
The house appears to have a mold issue. I am increasingly ill from it and my husband has brutal headaches. We are pretty sure this is the cause, this happened to us once before, in our own home, and it went away when we had it diagnosed and fixed.
We are going to have to break our lease here, the landlord refuses to let us go, despite proof, and then we will have to defend our action probably in small claims court. None of this is pleasant. To be fair to Mr Landlord, he has offered to have the HVAC system “looked at” but considering the Water Heater in this house is corroded almost all the way through and he has refused to fix it, despite the serviceman from People’s Gas telling us that it will corrode through eventually and release carbon dixoide.
nice huh? that is just one area of corrosion.
So, I have to rent a new place and begin packing. This will most likely cut down on canvas creation and my blog blabbing (maybe not by so much if it OK by you if I rant about movers and rental real estate agents etc.)
And yes, we bought the new car. The dealer called me the next day to tell me they had not gotten as much for my car, at the Auto Auction, as they hoped or paid me for the trade-in. It was like he wanted me to make up the difference. My exact response to his comments was “So?”.
The world, my world is changing, I hope for the better but I fear for the worse…..or maybe it is just the economy that is changing.
Lousy with Links
I have been pushed, scolded and chided by my more experienced and successful Internet Retailer friends and acquaintances for not making more use of the system of links in my blog entries.
They say, you do this blog, you should be plastering it with links to your web site and the products you sell.
My first friend at Visible.net, the tech company in Redmond, Washington I hired to build nn.com and web host it, helped me change my web site name from Needlepoint Chromatics (which is an awkward name) to NewNeedlepoint.com (which is a terrific name). Chris Wilde talked me into letting Visible.net work with me to design my gorgeous and classy new web site. They did a incredible job of it.
I am getting to my point eventually, bear with me.
Chris is their blog marketing expert. He recently suggested that I feature more of my stuff in my blog, work it in however and whenever. Combine that with everybody’s correct and proper advice to LINK anything to something. I guess my blogs are going to change a bit. Become more of the *store blog* they were always supposed to be.
Side note to the management of Visible.net: Zac, Zak and Chris Wilde all deserve magnificent raises)
I am a little sorry about this, but it is the right thing to do. Still, I can blabb on and digress like crazy and otherwise entertain myself (and I hope you) as much as always. Just larded up with links.
This is my Maiden Voyage, let’s see how it looks.
I have a few wonderful Claire Sanchez Tote bags that are no longer available elsewhere.
I hoarded them until they sold out, like little acorns for the winter in my busy squirrel cheecks (gotta love the analogy).
They are, in no special order: The Beverly Medium size Shoulder Bag
The Edie Large Studio Tote bag from the 2009 collection
The wonderful smaller Faye Carpetbag, also the 2009 collection
The Cayden large Tote from the 2009 collection with it’s wonderful green lining
Some of these bags are still available in smaller sizes, the Beverly & the Faye Carpetbag are not available at all.
The next group of bags are from Claire’s 2008 collection. They are not available anywhere, at any price.
The Georgia large Tote covered with lovely, soft flocked dots in autumn colors on heavy weight cotton.
The Turquoise Silk Dupioni Studio Handbag with Copper Leaf
The Pink Silk Dupioni Studio Handbag with Copper Leaf
As always, I carry Claire’s classic line of wonderful bags: this bag is one of my favorites, one I own. I love the hot pink lining.
and, this great smaller bag embellished with real copper foil, in a process Claire Sanchez invented
And this bag. The Metallic Reversible Mini Dot large tote bag also comes in black dots on charcoal, silver dots on black as well as this glowing gold bag
I am almost ashamed to tell you how many of these great Claire bags I have (7).
This is the next one I want. Silver Silk Shoulder Bag with Real Silver Foil
I suspect I need a keeper to restrain me.
Moving on. I noticed Jane, my excellent blogger friend, who writes the Chilly Hollow Needlepoint Adventure Blog post, today talked about storage and travel storage for needlework.
I carry (Ta Da!) The DMC Travel Roll. It’s official name is *Needlework On-The-Go Travel Roll.
This roll is a very good way to keep your threads or yarn from tangling in whatever tote bag you carry them in (the Claire Sanchez bags are great for that)
To get back to my point ( I do digress a lot, don’t I?) I have this odd little category at the very bottom of my category buttons list on my home page (here we go again) newneedlepoint.com.
At first I was not going to sell any of this kind of thing. I do not really have the money or the room to stock them, but then I bought some of this stuff, from my wholesalers, for my own use, and a few more to cover the fact I was buying them for myself, and there it was. A tiny, feeble Miscellaneous Category.
Anything I sell there is something I use myself, everyday. I do not think there is a better recommendation than that ( I do seem to think highly of my taste and judgement, such hubris).
This little item is the Crown Jewel of this collection. This might be the best $2.50 you ever spend on a needlework accessory (with free shipping but I beg of you, do not buy just this, I will be losing money to sell it to you).
.
Well, so much for today’s foray into Internet Sales Techniques 101. Remember, my long promised (threatened) Dominant Color Theory Blog is still pending.
Anyone who bet Keith would take more then 2 weeks to do the new “If I’d Killed Him” canvas wins.
I had a close encounter with a (shudder) Car Salesman today, I need to go take a very hot bath and rinse the stink of the whole process of buying a car off me (we have not yet reached a deal, Keith wants it, I want to pay less, the salesman is a salesman)
There has to be a better way.
Happy Needlepoint Blog
Enough gloom, enough. I have come this far and much of my work is good. As much as I love cliche’s, I usually avoid this one but indeed “Life Is Good”. That said, lets look at good stuff.
I had a wonderfully productive night, I designed 7 canvases. 6 of them are for my new *Stitch & Frame Needlepoint* Category and a re-do of “If I’d killed him when I met him”.
Keith promises to do all (or most) of them this morning, I hope I can post some pictures later today. I think, if I may say so myself, they are pretty good (or at least not bad).
I re-did the photo of the Zig-Zag Variation #3, named Psychedelic by the Needlepoint Book I found it in (what year is it?). I wanted the color graduations, in the light colors, to show. To do this I had to intensify the darker colors making the coral and the brown quite dark, they are not really.
I thought it might be good to visit some of my favorite designs on NewNeedlepoint.com. So far, in my Needlepoint in the 21st Century blog I have focused on the Bargello.
I am very interested in (read that as obsessed with) Bargello Needlepoint in all it’s forms but my first love was traditional Mono Canvas Needlepoint. I hope you find some of these designs not bad, not bad at all.
I think Lisianthus is a lovely design, nicely rendered. I did the Kit with the flower stitched in shades of purple but also offer this as canvas alone of Custom Color Choice (ever after known here as CCC).
I also like my 64 Hearts Canvas, it could be a collage of different colored hearts or more of a quilt feeling with all the hearts and shading in one color. Jane, of The Chilly Hollow Needlepoint Adventure Blog, has suggested this design in purples and silver. That would be gorgeous. For the kit I did it as a collage. I used 5 different color pairs, ranging from raspberry (of course, I always seem to use that one) to varied pinks to a pinky coral. It is also sold as canvas alone or CCC.
My graphics category is pretty thin, I have a few more to add. I like the Square Star design. It could be a quilt pattern or an optical. In the kit I assembled I did it as an optical, using colors close to the colors in the original picture it was based on. It too is also sold as canvas alone or CCC, where the choice of how to style it is yours.
the original picture
In the animals category I like all the ones I left after my web site slash and burn renovation. I think the Rooster is well drawn. I did his kit as Blue Rooster but he too can be bought as a canvas alone or CCC Kit.
There is a special place in my heart for Dancing Penguins. It is one of the happiest Needlepoint designs I have ever seen. This one is only sold as a kit, there is not much wiggle room with these colors, they pretty much need to be what they are. The night sky color could be different but, why? It is good as it is designed.
The last category of my own Needlepoint, not Bargello, is my Quotes and Chinese Kanji. I love all of the Mae West Quotes Canvases. I have 3 up, so far, and a few more in the pipeline.
and this
and this one, excellent quote and a colorful Art Deco border. This is the only one of the 3 that is also sold as canvas only or CCC.
I have just 2 Kanjis right now, most of them went bye-bye in the renovation. They were the first Needlepoint Canvases drawn by Keith, he has become much, much better since then. These are 2 more recent canvases he did but they are quite plain.
I plan to have more of them soon too. I am moving away from the squared off traditional Oriental box border, taking the Kanji Designs in new directions. You might have gotten an idea where I am going with the Kanji’s from my post about the failed Kanji Canvases (Mariannes Makes More Mistakes). I hope the newest ones will be more effective.
I think I will finish this thread (interesting, it is the name for a line of thought on a blog or what I call DMC #5 Pearle Cotton Floss) with a brand new canvas, not listed yet.
This Ferris Wheel design has been in my mind almost from the beginning. The colors used in the design original are so basic and primary that I decided to offer The Ferris Wheel just as the Canvas Alone or CCC. Anyone can do better then the colors used in the original.
and the picture
I must say, this post was much more fun to write. My Dominant Colors Color Theory Post is still looming on the horizon. It might (or might not) be more interesting than either of us think. So, happy is better, isn’t it?
Where I Drone On
I seem to be on a roll here, nothing I do, creatively speaking, has come out right for a while now (Ok, Ok, a little more than a week).
I have been whining about this to anyone who will listen (few and getting fewer every day) and on Facebook and Twitter, where they have no choice but to “listen”.
The seed of this seems to be in the random comment about my “coloring book needlepoint stuff”. It made me look at my needlepoint designs with a new eye. I suppose I had been riding a wave of satisfaction with my work and by association, with myself, with a total suspension of my usual critical facilities (maybe a first in my life, that).
Anyway, my first response was the renovation of NewNeedlepoint.com. I removed all the dicey canvases and kits we had done at the beginning. Stage 2 was the second pass, when I removed all the needlepoint designs that did not look right to me, any that I was even slightly unsure about.
Like
or
Next came the re-configuring on my web store. I removed the whole category “Color-Choice” and put the canvases that can be bought alone or ordered with custom colors where they belonged, with the Kits of the same design.
Then I took away the 24 X 24 Bargello Kits, they canvases were just too big to be practical or cost effective for me. I removed the “Ripples” Bargello pattern, I thought it was too simplistic.
Whew…..
Next came my issues with my new designs and the canvases drawn from them. They were terrible, unstitchable messes. Out they went. Then the long awaited “If I”d killed him when I met him” needlepoint canvas.
I was in such a hurry to pump that one out that I did not even think about the design. I let Keith place the hearts, and he has zero design sense, he did them like little soldiers guarding the corners of the canvas, all lined up nice (this is how he thinks, how many men think, I suspect).
I suppose I could have removed the entire blog I did praising and pumping that design. I could have let it slink off into obscurity and you, my 1.5 readers and all the many, many internet merchants who send bogus *blog comments* to get their URL published on my or any other blog, could wonder if you had lost your minds. “wasn’t there a blog entry about a quote canvas there, or did I imagine it?”.
To go off subject for a second. I get several phony blog comments every day. They are almost all worded the same “that was an interesting post, I will be subscribing to your blog” or maybe “you have a talent for this, you should write more”. I fell for it the first time, from someone who’s email address was soandso@howIlost30lbsin30days.com.
DOH! Or like mike@howtomakethousandsadayfromgooglelinks.com reads my needlepoint blog however he has emailed me 6 or 7 times, so far, to tell me my post was interesting and he will certainly be subscribing (hint:my blog does not have “subscribers”).
Anyway, back to boring reality
No, masochist that I am, I left it there and posted a “I didn’t like it” blog. This is me, my slip is always showing, in reality and metaphorically speaking.
My most recent mistake is this. this is the first sample for my new newNeedlepoint.com category *Stitch & Frame Needlepoint*.
The flower came out good but I messed up on the script. it is too small and the cursive letters are too close together. After 3 attempts to stitch it, I gave up. We will do a new sample.
To end this tale of woe, there is one thing I have not messed up (YET). This is a Zig-Zag pattern variation called *Psychedelic*. I am not kidding, that is what the book calls it. I think I will call it variation #3. So far, so good.
The colors did not come out very well in this picture. The colors graduate, on either side of the lightest color is a pale peach. it did not show up well in my picture.
Off on another tangent, blog writing is addictive. I feel this completely bizarre responsibility to you, my 1.5 blog readers, to write this garbage. Or I tell myself that. In truth, I love writing this blog. I may even like it better then designing and doing Needlepoint, which assumes my design abilities will soon reassert themselves. I sit and just write this stuff. I rarely edit it, except for spelling and major lapses of grammar (my spelling is atrocious, laughable even).
I just *speak* to the page and to you. I have no real idea who, if anyone, reads this. I just do it and it flows out of me like water (maybe sort of muddy water). Who knew this was so great and why did I not discover how much I liked it until now? Questions for the ages, right up there with “why did I marry him? or “why did I buy that house/car”.
Bear with me, I hope to survive this temporary set-back. Today is my 59th birthday. How did this happen? I was 23 yesterday.
