E-Week Annex is on my website!

We have a special treat again this year: E-week Annex, with all sorts of Supplies Packets and goodies to go with my designs from E-Week.

Kate's Corner has put this all together and it is an impressive array of offerings. Kate really did her homework and she has even found some of the threads no longer in production, for example the Medici wool for Golden Acorns and the Marlitt for Tuxedo Heart. The supplies aren't unlimited but indeed there are many Supplies packets available.

This is the second year that Kate has constructed E-Week Annex for me and I am grateful. I don't think I could have done the work, yet people have always asked about the convenience of one-stop shopping for my designs.

So thank you, Kate, for coming back again and helping me!

Gay Ann

Stitching Elizabeth: a video about my needlepoint Elizabeth 1

Yesterday E-Week, my annual sale of patterns from my archives, ended. Whew! Finished for another year! I made it through!

I like to end E-Week each year with a small treat and this year I made a small video of slides of my needlepoint design of Elizabeth 1. I used photos of my Elizabeth and the Elizabeths of my students from Callaway Gardens School of Needle Arts last January, along with photos of Carole Lake, Michael Boren and me and portraits of Carole and me masquerading in portraits of Elizabeth.

A fitting way to end E-Week this year. www.GayAnnRogers.com, to see it.

My portrait of Elizabeth 1 made a mystery appearance at E-Week this year. When she was unveiled, it turned out that she will become a class at Shining Needle Society next summer. Kate, director of Shining Needle Society, our online school, will open a room very soon and we will hang out in that room until the class starts.

Why so long? To acclimatize and ready ourselves for the class. We can chat and stitch and enjoy all things Elizabeth and stitching in there. I am looking forward to it. A place to relax.

Meanwhile, I face Mail Jail, that is, mailing the orders from E-Week.

I sent off the first batches of patterns to the print shop on Wednesday afternoon. I expected to have them back yesterday, but the print shop hasn't called me yet to say they've finished printing them. Soon as they finish and I pick them up, I will start mailing them. I imagine it will take me close to 6 weeks, maybe even 2 months, to mail them all.

So farewell to E-Week for another year.

Gay Ann

E-Week, my annual needlepoint sale, is almost over

Only a few hours till E-Week, the annual sale of needlepoint designs from my archives ends.

This is my 5th E-Week Sale. It doesn't seem possible that five years has passed since I first thought up the idea and sold patterns on my blog. It was before the birth of Queendom Website.

This year's sale had its very smooth moments (my Early Morning Sales went off like clockwork) and its rocky moments.
The rockiest was when MacSoph, my trusty little MacBookPro crashed. I think she'd had enough of it all and just decided not to boot up.

After about an hour she'd had enough rest and she was back, but she didn't want to connect with our online network.

About a year ago one of my Apple tutors had told me that he thought I needed a second computer to back up my whole system, and he was so right! Little MacSoph, my other laptop came into service. It's a bit disjointed but I'm surviving.

A man arrives this afternoon to see to MacSoph and try to convince her she needs to go back online.
If he succeeds, then I will end E-Week with a treat. I hope people will stop by and see it tomorrow morning. It is just a small treat, complete with music and all. A fitting end and a bit of calm to a sometimes frantic week.

Is it really all over?

No, for Annex will start in a couple of days, but this time the hassle is Kate's as she begins to live in Kit Hell and Mail Jail. She has been such a huge help to me and I hope to lend a bit of help and support back. Kate is gathering together supplies packets for many of the projects I've sold at E-Week.

And after Annex?

Time to stitch all the stuff! I plan a rigorous year of stitching in my general classroom at Shining Needle Society. If you would like to join us, membership is free, just write to KateGaunt@aol.com.

Be prepared to wield your needle in the next year, till it is time again for E-Week. Yikes! I have to tell you that I have already received a number of requests for next year's sale! Happily I am not thinking about it yet. I have a whole year till then!

Gay Ann

E-Week's Early Morning Sales

Tomorrow (Saturday) and Sunday mornings, at 8:00 a.m. California time, Early Morning Sales begin on my website, in connection with my annual sale of designs from my archives.

It is exciting! On my website are 8 windows for each morning. If you click on them now, nothing happens.
If you click on the first one at 8:00, it will open and a special offering will be behind it.

A different window will open every 15 minutes till all 8 windows are open.
Some of the offerings are for limited numbers, some for everybody. Some are returning designs, some are new designs, and new this year: a small twist on a very popular sewing case.

It is lively and quick paced and it stirs up life on E-Week's Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Only once a year; I hope you will come and join us.

Gay Ann

www.GayAnnRogers.com
Remember, 8:00 a.m. prompt, tomorrow morning!

My Needlepoint Mysteries, their variations and colors, and E-Week

So many of you have asked for me to bring my geometric mysteries back in my E-Week Sale.

This morning a person ( I don't know her name, she didn't sign her email) wrote to me and asked if the patterns contained all of the colorways I show in my galleries on my website, www.GayAnnRogers.com.

The answer is no.

Those examples were from stitchers who stitched the mystery when it was first new.
Sadly I have lost the stitchers' names. If I don't have their names, I certainly don't have their threads and colors.

When these mysteries were new, they arrived on stitchers' doorsteps without any color or line guides.
The pattern includes instructions like this:

Choose a Watercolours or other overdyed thread suitable for 18-mesh canvas.
Choose a canvas to coordinate with the Watercolours.
Choose a pearl cotton approximately the same color as the canvas.
Choose a light value that harmonizes with the Watercolours.
Choose a dark value that harmonizes with the Watercolours.
Choose a Kreinik braid that contrasts.

I just made these up to give an example of how I write mysteries.

This is a long roundabout way of saying, the many examples on my website are for inspiration but the stitcher will have to decide on her own colors.

One of the good parts of my classroom at Shining Needle Society is that stitchers may have help from their fellow stitchers in the classroom . For example, if several of you are working on the same mystery, you might help one another. Or you might ask advice of the other members of the classroom. If you would like to join Shining Needle Society and my classroom there, membership is free.

Just write to KateGaunt@aol.com. Kate is the director.

OK, why would I do this to you? Why do I want you to grapple with colors instead of my giving them to you and letting you zone out and stitch.

I'll answer the question in my next post.
Gay Ann

Notes on My Needlepoint Colorizations

I am beginning to receive quite a few queries about my colorizations and whether all Colorways are included in my patterns.

When I include the colorways, I specify in the description of the pattern, for example I included with Summer Solstice Geometric the original colors and the blue-green colors and the light blue and silver.

I do not include the ones for the examples I posted on my website this morning.

I have two comments to say about them:
first, I think you could email the colorization to your favorite shop and ask them to pull the colors.
Once you have the pattern, you could send them the threads and numbers in the pattern so that they would have a guide to go by.
I am sure that Pat Duggan, for example, would be happy to help you with the task.

Second, I am rather hoping that you will use the colorizations as inspiration and grapple with pulling them yourself.
It is a bit of learning and a bit of a stretch and a bit of growth well worth your while.

All summer and fall long (as long as fall has been, ie not long) I have been trotting down to our local needlework shop and pulling the colors to match my colorizations. Sometimes I can't find exactly what I did, but I find something close enough. If I can't find anything in a particular line of threads, say in Vineyard silk, I try pearl cotton or silk (figuring I will use multiple ply) or floss, or some other thread that catches my fancy.

Rarely is a design such that ONLY one thread in ONLY one color will work.

One of the reasons for studying color this way is to gain the confidence to find alternatives.

After all, needlepoint is our way of slipping into a imaginative world and playing with visually satisfying colors and textures.
Part of the joy is finding the exact way you see it in your mind. To do that you have to be a bit flexible and flexibility comes with confidence.

That's one of my purposes in leading my Shining Needle Society classroom. I want people to gain the confidence to try.
If you would like to join Shining Needle Society in general and my classroom specifically, membership is free.
Just write to KateGaunt@aol.com. Kate is the director of Shining Needle Society.

If you have any opinions about my colorizations, good or bad, I would welcome them, either posted publicly here or directed to me personally in an email. GARRogers@earthlink.net.

This post is long enough.

I have a couple of other issues about colorizations and my mysteries. I'll be back in a while and write another post.
Otherwise these will become so long nobody will ever read all the way through them.

Gay Ann

MacSoph is in Mourning

One day many years ago DH said to me that we had been invited to hear a presentation about a new computer system called Next.

At the time we were two of probably 15 people who watched and listened for a couple of hours as Steve Jobs told us about his new ideas and system called 'Next'.

Little did I ever dream that day of the impact that Next would have on my life. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Apple incorporated the ideas of Next and today MacSoph, my little MacBook pro, is really a Next MacBook.

Today MacSoph is in mourning because her father has died.

The impact that Steve Jobs has had on my own life is incredible. I have gone, in the last year, from traveling and teaching needlework, at my height on the road a week or two out of every month, to life creating a website and teaching online.

Instead of time on an airplane, I now spend so many of my hours learning to use MacSoph and working on Queendom Website. What a change it has been, none of it possible for someone like me, had Apple not made a computer so easy to learn to use, and had it not made a program like One to One lessons to teach me how MacSoph works.

Thank you, Steve Jobs, and thank you, Apple. I will do my best to study harder, learn more and carry on loving Apple.

Gay Ann

Monday, 9 Days Till E-Week

This morning on my website I posted the third of three galleries of my work.

My first gallery is of all the mysteries I've designed and stitched over the years.
They aren't mysteries any longer because people can see what they look like, but originally people bought them with little idea what the pattern would be and took me on faith as the pattern unfolded.

I discovered early on that a mystery was a great chance to offer small options to encourage a bit of creativity, and that's what happened. If you look at various examples of my geometric mysteries, they vary greatly, particularly 'Glittering Diamonds'. Over the years I have seen examples I don't recognize because of the way the color interacts with the pattern. It delights me and I am hoping to do more of them.

The second of my galleries features all 10 of the designs I have made incorporating cameos, from a very large sampler to small ornaments and hearts. I think cameos are so pretty and romantic that for a long time I was very caught up in making needlework to display them. Before now I have never gathered together all of them in one place. It was fun to see.

The third of my galleries displays six of the large samplers I have made over time and sold at previous E-Weeks. All of them were projects I taught at National Seminars for EGA and ANG and of course for a favorite job at Callaway School of Needle Arts.
These samplers include some of my most industrious work.

Aside from these three galleries, I have a large gallery displaying my Elizabeth 1 Portrait and the portraits of Elizabeth from my students at Callaway last January. I am amazed at how much each Elizabeth has her own personality, reflecting of course each student who stitched her.

I plan to keep these up for a couple more days as I prepare for E-Week, my annual sale of patterns from my archives.
E-Week begins bright and early this year on October 12.

This year's E-Week is a trifle different. In the past the patterns have always been from my guild days, projects I had taught at past seminars. This year I have stitched 11 new designs just for E-Week, a first for me, but a harbinger of E-Weeks to come, I hope.

I see more samplers in my future, both large and small, lots more sewing cases, some new figures (I still have Bess and Mary to write) and who knows what else. As the spirit moves me. It is the genuinely best part of life right now, that I can stitch as I wish.

Hope you will stop by Queendom Website to see all these galleries:
For quick reference: www.GayAnnRogers.com

Gay Ann

Elizabeth 1, a Portrait: my needlepoint design

This morning Queendom Website came alive with portraits of Elizabeth 1.

On my home page is my own version of Elizabeth 1; 'inside' are portraits worked by Carole Lake's and my students at Callaway School of Needle Arts last January.

When I first thought of making an exhibition of Elizabeth 1 portraits, I worried they might all look the same, but surprisingly (considering they were worked from my pattern) they each have their own personalities. I have had a great time clicking through the exhibition and seeing all the variations of them -- it has been a delight!

To see the Elizabeths, travel to my website:

www.GayAnnRogers.com
and click on 'Elizabeth Exhibition'.
And enjoy!

Gay Ann

A Book for Thimble Collectors: American Silver Thimbles for sale

For a long time I've been promising to post a sale of my book, American Silver Thimbles.

I did so this morning on my website.

Quite often people write to me with all sorts of thimble queries and I try to answer them as time allows. Over the years, at the top of the list has come the question: 'do you have any copies of your book at a reasonable amount of money?' Finally I decided I have read this too often, so I typed 'American Silver Thimbles' into a book query on Amazon.com and had quite a shock.

The cheapest copy I found was $255.00, the most expensive $350.00.

It was then I decided I had better sell some copies, so I posted them at the book's original price of $47.95 plus $6.00 priority shipping. I am hoping that fledgling thimble collectors to whom I have long promised copies will be able to have a copy now.

American Silver Thimbles is valuable in this sense: it is a record of American silver thimbles from 53 collections at what I think of as the height of thimble-collecting frenzy more than 20 years ago. At just about the height of the frenzy, I visited many remarkable collections, shot so many rolls of film, then stood in a dark-room converted from a bathroom and processed and printed all the photos for the book.

So many of the collections have since been broken up that I look back and think to myself it was a great time to shoot so many thimbles. I doubt I could assemble the collection today.

..............

After I wrote American Silver Thimbles, thimbles were at their height. Good ones were scarce and fetching all-the-time higher and higher prices.

I had never been a singularly devoted thimble collector; I had bought them, but only as one of many needlework tools, and when they continued to fetch higher and higher prices, I gave up looking for them.

For the 20 years that followed my book, I transitioned into teaching needlework full time, and I more or less forgot about collecting thimbles.

Then last November, when I was surfing eBay for interesting auctions to post on my website, I came across some remarkably wonderful American thimbles for auction. I followed along through the Christmas season and was amazed to see the high quality and relatively low prices of the thimbles that 20 years ago had been so sky high in price.

And guess what: I became interested in thimbles all over again. I am at heart a contrarian when it comes to shopping for antiques. I don't believe in shopping for things when they are at the height of fashion.

Last Christmas I began looking back through American Silver Thimbles and just for fun, I began ticking off the thimbles I'd found on eBay. I had a great time! It was just like visiting old friends who has slipped out of my life for a while.

Of course I bought a few of them. I think my favorite finds were two: I bought the Liberty Bell thimble at a fraction of its former price and I bought a very rare Untermyer Robbins thimble of two lions. Finding any UR thimble was, in the old days, a happy occasion; finding a highly decorative one a joy indeed.

An old hobby renewed. Now I look every week to see if some interesting thimbles turn up.

And now I am hoping maybe a new generation of thimble collectors will be inspired to enjoy these tiny little treasures.

Gay Ann

Busy Busy Busy

Up front I have kept my website going with eBay listings I like and hope will be of interest to my followers.
I've now stripped down my navigation bar to only 2 lines in preparation for new postings.

Behind the scenes MacSoph (my computer) and I are scrambling scrambling. MacSoph's worn out her keys and I've worn out my fingers typing on those keys. iWeb is now swollen to a dangerously large level and MacSoph crosses her keys and I my fingers that everything won't crash.

Up front it looks like nothing's happening.

But things will start to happen soon.

I have a wonderful exhibition coming soon. I can't wait!
And I have some galleries of my own work coming soon.
And soon, too soon, it will be time for Pre-Week.
And then for E-Week itself.
And then for Early Morning Sales.
And E-Week Annex where people can order supplies from Kate.

Yikes! Come on, MacSoph, we have to go back to work!

But up front it all still looks so leisurely.

Gay Ann

A New Adventure

Here it is, in my busiest season (with E-Week just around the corner) and I've started a new adventure:
I am tackling stitching on linen ground.

I've been at it for about 3 or 4 days now and I've learned a lot, with help from my Shining Needle Society Classroom.

Today I had a note from Jane-Ellen Balzuweit offering me a suggestion or two and suddenly into my mind jumped: Idea for an online class at Shining Needle Society, called 'Linen Technique Clinic' and I am hoping Jane-Ellen will lead it.

Jane-Ellen, if you have ever followed her embroidery career, is one of those amazing needlework whizzes who can do anything with a needle and thread and get it to work. She reminds me a little of Carol Algie who has the same talents. They both seem to be able to tackle anything, easy or difficult, and have it come out well.

For those of you who don't know them, you should! Both have taught for EGA for years and years and they are both people I look up to.

Here I am, on a new adventure, and I look forward to help from Jane-Ellen and from other members of the class.

Does this mean I am giving up needlepoint? No, absolutely not. I just have a vision of a sampler I would love to make and it deserves to be on a linen ground. I will write more about it as time permits. For now I am content to doodle on different types of linen and see how I do.

And of course I have too much work to do for E-Week, so I really shouldn't be doing any stitching at all.
But who can live without a needle in her hand at least some time during the day? Not me, that's for sure.

If you'd be interested in taking this class along with me, write to KateGaunt@aol.com. She is the director of Shining Needle Society and she and Jane-Ellen are starting to plan the class.

I can't wait!
Gay Ann

Reflections on Designing and Stitching in 2011

This morning I posted on my website my own personal favorite of the Summer Solstice designs I doodled this summer.

For a long while the Flower was my favorite and I would still like to try and convert it into a thistle. I don't think it would be a difficult conversion and as I love purple, green and white together, I would enjoy working on it. Maybe early next year. Till then I fear my days are filled to capacity and I would like to know, does anybody know how to stretch the days?

Right now an elephant is standing very near me in my work room. The Elephant is E-Week, my yearly sale. A month and a half to go and I am working away every moment at it.

Some time ago an acquaintance remarked quite authoritatively at a meeting that I had stopped stitching entirely and I spent ALL my time on my computer.

I do spend a lot of time on my computer, most of it writing instructions for the nearly 30 pieces of needlepoint that I have designed and stitched since January 1 this year.

5 hearts, the Royal Wedding pieces and the Summer Solstice designs have all turned up on my website so far but they account for only a part of 2011 for me. Most of my new pieces are for E-Week and I have indeed been busy writing instructions on the computer.

I have not given up stitching. I don't think I ever will. Quite simply I love my time with my needle. It feeds my soul.

And besides, I have far too much stash to give up stitching. Far too much!

This brings me back to Summer Solstice and my favorite of the designs in the series. In the end I like my original Sun-like Geometric the best. It looks like the Summer Sun to me and after all, that is the most appropriate of the designs from a Summer of busy stitching time.


Gay Ann

Plans for My Summer Solstice Designs

I had a great weekend, a bit of everything I spend my time doing.

I stitched quite a while on both Saturday and Sunday evenings.
On Saturday I went bead shopping (yes more beads, it seems an endless addiction).
On Sunday I went to the Apple Store for lessons. I face the long task of redoing my website in the next year.
In between I wrote about my plans for Summer Solstice, my designs from a summer of doodle-stitching.

I just posted my plans on my website in Summary 4 of my Summer Solstice experience, but here is a bit more about my plan.

I had not been working for long on Summer Solstice when I noticed that I was using a single center motif and building up patterns around it. It surprised me how much the various patterns changed what was essentially the same design. By the time I started colorizing the parts, I thought all the designs took on such a different appearance, even though as I said they were essentially the same design.

In the Summer Solstice Banner I made up a series of new squares and each could easily function in the role of my original center design. If someone took one of these little center squares, she could gently and non-threateningly build herself a new design.
She could juggle my patterns and add her favorites to them; she could experiment almost endlessly with different colors.

In short, I could turn Summer Solstice into a simple little design experience with anybody willing to try.

Of course anybody who wishes to can stitch any one of the designs just as I did, but I am hoping they will join me in a Study Room at Shining Needle Society and watch what happens. I even have a prize, a yummy cake shipped, for the stitcher who makes the most creative adaptation of Summer Solstice.

I am hoping to start the Study Room for Summer Solstice the first week of the new year and have it up until April 1.

More details on my website, and still more will show up at E-Week, my sale in mid-October.

Gay Ann

Forty-Six Cheers for Adobe!

This summer my life got a lot worse: Apple took away the program I use to create my website. Yes, iWeb is disappearing and MacSoph, Queendom Website and I have become iWeb Orphans.

All summer long my angst has been, what do we do?

Now almost every sophisticated computer person has looked askance at iWeb as 'not sophisticated' 'a very bad web design program' 'not for serious people' 'only for amateurs' etc. OK, I've learned enough to know that some of the complaints are well founded.

Still, iWeb gave me a very simple format and a great deal of freedom to stitch together my bit of magic.

As I've looked around for a program to replace iWeb, I've 'auditioned' several and found that the simple ones slot me in a box and force me to stay in the confines of the box. They may be more sophisticated in terms of web stuff, but for design possibilities they don't live up to iWeb.

The only way around the dilemma was the long arduous task of learning code, so I spent a considerable amount of time learning a bit about html and css. I found I actually enjoy it, but I was not at all certain I wanted to spend each day using it to make daily changes to Queendom Website. I could see my treasured stitching time evaporating in a mist of angle brackets.

Still I soldiered on, each day feeling more and more like sending a stream of darts toward Apple's management for its decision to kill iWeb.

All along DH has told me, there are too many iWeb users and someone will step up to the plate and do something that will help all the iWeb Orphans.

Who knew that the someone stepping up to the plate would be the almighty Adobe itself.

Forty-Six Cheers for Adobe! It is as if they heard my own personal cry and brought me the perfect solution for Queendom Website!

MacSoph, Queendom Website and I will live on for another day after all. Thank you, Adobe! Thank you thank you thank you!

Gay Ann

An Unseasonal Christmas Banner on Queendom Website

Today is the second day I have a Christmas version of Summer Solstice Banner on the homepage of my website. I just finished updating my website for the day and as I clicked on it, all the red and green looks so strange as we wind into the third week of August.

Tomorrow morning the fourth and last design will magically appear on my home page and I will convert back to the sunny summer colors.

I have whiled away my summer doodle-stitching the series and I've had a great time with it. I've enjoyed not having to plan where I am headed, but just kick back and see where my needle leads me. Although I have doodle-stitched many times, this is the first time I've documented and published my day-by-day progress and it has been a journey full of surprises for me.

So what have I learned in this journey? And what have I hoped my followers have learned? And what am I going to do with it all?

After I post the fourth design, I will write about my nearly 2 months of Summer Solstice and hopefully answer the above questions.
I didn't start with a plan but gradually one evolved as I stitched the pieces.

Gay Ann

Summer Solstice is Coming to a Close

After a whole summer of doodle-stitching, I am finally to the end of my Summer Solstice Project.
I will reveal the last two designs over the next couple of days.

So what am I going to do with these four designs?
I have a plan and I will write about it very soon.

In fact I wasn't very far along with the first of the designs when the goal occurred to me and I have been stitching with it in mind ever since. The only hint at this point? It involves a bit of creativity, and it involves a Cake.

To read about the Cake (yes, CAKE) check out my website, www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'CAKE' on the navigation bar.

I haven't finished the cake yet, but boy is it delicious! I am guessing that the cake will add all 6 lbs I've just lost. What I've never figured out is how a cake that weighs less than 1 pound can add 6 lbs to me. Don't tell me it doesn't happen, because I have countless experiences countering your argument.

Oh well, who can resist a delicious cake.
Gay Ann

On Designing for Needlepoint

Yesterday I received the following post which was the end of a long comment about Summer Solstice, my summer project.
I've posted all comments on my website, but this one seems to ask that I answer it more thoroughly, since it hits squarely on the reason I've been stitching Summer Solstice.


Here’s the end of terryb's long post:
This is a fun exercise, but I hope your intentions were not to convince us that designing is easy. Rather it points out the complicated aspects that are involved and how important it is that they all mesh to create a beautiful and successful end product.


And here's my answer:
No, the purpose of Summer Solstice has not been to convince anyone that designing is easy. I've been designing needlepoint projects for a long time now and I've never found it easy.

My idea was to develop a small design by picking up my needle and starting, without any idea where I was headed. I was hoping to take my followers through the various stages of developing a small design so that they could see the process and begin to evaluate along with me each of the stages Summer Solstice goes through.

Sometimes it is easy to think in black and white and forget about the gray areas between the two extremes. In this case, at one end is a design by someone else and the stitcher simply reproduces what the designer did. At the other end is a blank piece of canvas in need of a design. There are a lot of possibilities between these two extremes, and that's what I am after.

I am not asking everybody to pick up blank canvases and fill them. I am hoping that people will learn to watch more carefully what they are stitching and bring a little of themselves to their needlework by making small personal changes. To make the changes well, someone has to grapple a bit with the design process and think about where she's headed.

When someone stitches a design that is all worked out ahead of time, it is a safe and easy choice. As the stitcher hits the awkward stages that all designs go through, she can overlook them and focus instead on the pretty color photo of the design as it will become. Once she starts to deviate even a little bit from the pattern, she will have to learn to look at what is actually happening on the canvas and evaluate where she is and where she is headed.

With my Summer Solstice project, that's exactly what I am trying to demonstrate. I don't know where I am headed or whether it will work out. What I have to do is stitch a bit, then stop and evaluate where I am and where I want to go, then try out my ideas and see if they work, rip a lot when they don't, evaluate again and stitch again.

So why grapple with these problems at all when the world is full of beautiful designs just waiting to be stitched?

Over my years as a needlework teacher, I have heard so many times the excitement in someone's voice when she takes a small step toward personalizing her needlework by trying a choice of her own and discovering that it works. There is a sense of engagement that doesn't exist with rote reproduction of a design. Yes, it is more difficult, but it is often very rewarding.

I am hoping that Summer Solstice will help people see a myriad of possibilities and the differences that small changes can make; I am hoping people will begin to look at their own needlework projects and say, 'I wonder what would happen if...."

Gay Ann

My Summer Project

On the Summer Solstice I took the whole day and stitched.

I began stitching a project in an unconventional way: I gathered together a variety of threads in colors I like and a square of 18 mesh canvas and I began stitching without a plan or a drawing to guide me.

My idea is to start with one color and one stitch and then make the next decision based on that color and that stitch, then the next decision once I see the first and second choices, and so forth, and watch where it all leads.

I have stitched this way on several occasions In the past, and sometimes the designs work out and sometimes not. Even if the designs don't work out, I always come away with some interesting patterns or color combinations which I have incorporated into other designs. In the best of circumstances, I come up with a design that stands on its own. My past design called 'Twilight Garden Square' was one of these experiments.

This time is a bit different because I decided to document each step and make it a summer project on my website. I have been snapping photos along the way and making notes about the process as I go. This morning I posted the first of the series on my website: a photo of the threads and canvas I started with and some notes about my choices. I plan to write about my decisions along the way, why I did this, why I chose that, etc., as I go.

The thing about this way of working is, I never know where I am headed, so I am hoping it will be lively, a bit of suspense and a bit of living on the edge in terms of needlepoint. We'll see how it turns out.

To follow along:
www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'Summer' on my navigation bar.

Gay Ann

Summer Solstice Stitch In

It is the eve of one of my favorite days of the year: tomorrow we have more daylight hours than any other day of the year and that's why it is one of my favorite days.

In my classroom at Shining Needle Society I planned a Summer Solstice Stitch In. My original plan was to start stitching after dinner and stitch till the last light of the day fades.

Now I've revised my plan. I decided I deserve one of my favorite days all to myself, so with notable exceptions for errands and to-do tasks and of course food breaks, I plan to pick up my needle at first light tomorrow morning and stitch all day long till the final bit of light in the evening. I have invited all of Shining Needle Society, at least all of the members I can reach, to e-drop in and join me for whatever time they can, then tell us how much they accomplished.

My idea for myself is to start a new project.

Lately, out in my guest room, I have had squares of 18 mesh canvas in all colors spread out with chunks of favorite threads in favorite colors on top of the canvas squares. Today I plan to choose one of those squares and its colors, mount the square on stretcher bars and set it aside along with two shiny new tapestry needles for tomorrow morning.

So what do I plan to stitch? That's what's unusual about this project of mine: I don't know, I don't have any drawings or any plans. I will just pick up my needle and start, then see what I come up with. I plan to start at the center of the canvas and watch what evolves.

I've done this before and it is great fun. I have to watch what is happening and I often have to rip a lot, but I usually do a lot of ripping anyway. I love not knowing where I am heading, just interacting with the canvas to see what evolves.

This time I plan to take photos each step of the way and post the results on my website, bad or good, through the next month.

We'll see how it all turns out.

Happy Summer Solstice Eve. Enjoy the wonderful long hours of daylight.