A repaired fiber rack and some creche figures

Thank goodness for friends with home workshops!  The "spider"sections of my fiber rack needed to be put into a vise and bent back into their proper positions.  Tom kindly did that for me this morning and his wife, Lynn, and I immediately reassembled the rack and Lynn started hanging cards of Splendor.  Of course, time spent dealing with this rack also explains my lack of stitching production this week.  Mumble, mumble, mumble.

At least everyone knows what I'll be doing next week.  It gives a whole new meaning to the term "stoop labor" (my lower back loves it).  And many thanks to John from Rainbow Gallery for his long distance counseling.

On the canvas front,  last week I received some Christmas canvases from Rebecca Wood.  She has a new creche with the following camel and wisemen designs.  Notice that they are paired with matching fabrics.

It's also a nice touch that the camels have 3 different poses.  Of course, my fav is the one looking right at us.

And this exhausted Santa reflects how many of us feel on Christmas Eve!

If the shoe fits...session 5

That sound you hear is the gnashing of my teeth.  I just edited the photograph of my progress on the shoe canvas, only to discover noticeable dye lot streaks.  I never let customers start backgrounds without having enough to finish, so why do I just blithely grab skeins at random?  I would pick out the bad lot, but I did another no-no.  I kept both dye lot papers, but NOT on the fiber.  They're just floating around, so how do I know which lot is the last one stitched.  Surprisingly, the color differences show up very little to the naked eye.  This has happened before, where something shows up in a photograph that isn't obvious at a glance. The only thing worse than this is if I get more dye lot streaks with the next skein.  I think that will be the time to contemplate my navel and hmmm.

The never-ending saga of the spinning fiber rack continues.  When putting on the panels after installing the new doughnut in the base, I managed to snag one in the hooks holding the panels in place.  Bent them.  Tried to put it together as it is, but not satisfactory.  After another telephone consultation with John of Rainbow Gallery, I have to take the rack apart (AGAIN), and try to bend the hooks back.  About this time a new rack is starting to look very good to me.  And heaven help me if anyone wants a card or two of Splendor in the near future.  It's in 6 boxes, in absolutely no order.  Someone came in yesterday looking for a flesh color and I miraculously plucked it from pandemonium.  All I could think of yesterday while I was wrestling with screwing panels together--"All I want to do is work in a needlepoint shop where all I have to do is sit and stitch all day".  Me too!

Swimming with the fishes...part IV

Well, to catch everyone up on the rack and its problems:  Monday I talked with John at Rainbow Gallery about the problem.  I had looked at the base Saturday and again Monday morning and couldn't see any damage.  I was all ready to start putting it back together, but decided to wait until I could pick John's brain.  Since I'm in Florida and he's in California, I had to wait until 12:30 to make the call.  Thank goodness I did.  John walked me through the rack's possible problem areas.  I had the rack base in my lap and was rubbing it (my employees tell me that I rub lots of things.  Guess I'm in the right business since I obviously like texture.).  All of a sudden, I realized that I could feel the long crack in the black plastic, but I couldn't see it.  After I tilted the base here and there, the crack showed up.  John wasn't surprised at my discovery and is sending a replacement base.  In the same box will be a small fiber order I placed--free shipping and a free base!  What a deal.  Of course, next week I'll have to reload the fibers on the rack.  That will definitely cut into my shop stitching time.  I should have asked John to come visit and help!

Speaking of visitors, I had the manager and her husband today from Rittenhouse Needleworks in Philadelphia.  It's always nice to meet people from other shops.  Often at wholesale markets we are all too focused on what we're seeing and how much we're spending to spend much time chatting with each other.  I like to visit shops when I travel.  The region of the country and the personality of the show owner govern the inventory.  Often I see items I had overlooked at market.  For instance, Needle Nicely has an unusually large inventory of belt canvases.  That's partly because golfers will wear needlepoint belts; tennis players are less apt to.  We also have a studio where we design custom belts for customers.   

Some of you might have noticed that I'm a sports fan.  I grew up with 6 brothers and 2 sisters--and guess who controlled the television?  As I grow older and athletes change teams for money with no loyalty, I am less apt to watch professional team sports(with notable exceptions like Peyton Manning and his brother Eli), but I love individual sports like tennis and golf.  This past weekend, Boo Weekley was in the running to win the Heritage Golf tournament in Hilton Head.  But Boo has to get some putting lessons, because his putting cost him over $200,000. if not the tournament.  But I was there with him Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.  At least, by television viewing!  And I got quite a bit of stitching done between watching those "just a moment ago, Boo did..."  Here's my progress:

Not only did I finish the Lilac fish, but I got over half of the fins done on the golden fish.  So I estimate another two weeks of stitching before I start on the next project.  I can't wait!

EDIT:  I forgot to mention, I'm going to be doing a newsletter, perhaps randomly, but if you'd like to receive it, either put your email in the comments or email me at nnicely@gate.net  I'm trying to come up with content that hasn't appeared in my blog.  We'll see if I'm successful.

If the shoe fits...session 3

Well, every so often life provides a little unnecessary excitement.  First thing this morning I was helping a customer look for a specific fiber.  I spun on of Rainbow Gallery's large rack and all of a sudden heard a loud crack and the rack immediately developed a list to the right.  That will definitely get your heart pumping!  And of course my Saturday fiber restocker, Lynn, immediately got on her knees trying to get a good view of the problem area.  That scared me even more, since she was right in the way of the listing rack.  We immediately started finding homes for the fibers, doubling up the fibers on our three other racks.  It took over 2 hours to complete the transfer of fibers. We even enlisted a customer, Marilyn, to help. 

With the rack empty, at 12:35 I walked across the parking lot to watch the HD Metropolitan Opera presentation of La Traviata.  It felt good to sit down!  Before the show started, I realized that I had totally forgotten lunch.  Thank goodness my opera buddy had some oreos for me to munch on.  I've learned that I put too much "butter" on my popcorn to eat on an empty stomach--definitely major indigestion.  It was a great performance with wonderfully lyrical music. 

Back at the shop and time to analyze the rack's problem.  The base is plastic and all I could determine was that the central post had managed to slip in its holder.  And now I believe I could have removed the full panels without emptying them to diagnose the problem, although perhaps the full panels are too heavy and unwieldy for a woman to handle.  I think I'll chat with John at Rainbow Gallery before I put everything back together again.  He may have some suggestions.

Now on to the stitching in my life--I started doing the outer border of If the Shoe Fits... in the alternating Scotch stitch using black fyrewerks and Kreinik holographic orange Balger #16.  It is really glistening and pretty.  And I almost finished the right-hand side of the bottom area of the canvas. 

I'm also stitching on the black background of the Christmas stocking we're stitching in the shop for a customer.  I'm about 45% finished with my part (the black) of that project. 

And tomorrow I'll be stitching on my fish while I watch Boo Weekley golfing at the Harbor Town golf tournament.  He's 4 behind the leader, but maybe he'll have a fantastic day and win! 

If the shoe fits...

I'm not usually a fan of Halloween canvases, but this one appeals to me.  Perhaps it's because of the shoe collection residing in my closet.  This canvas is by Treglown Designs on 13mesh canvas and is stitch-painted so it's a dream to stitch.  As is my wont, I started in the upper right doing the basketweave using slime green silk 'n ivory.  I plan to keep working from the top right, but also plan in the next week to jump down to the bottom right-hand section so I can do background and then get started on the "dots" or bubbles. 

But I had to reward myself by stitching the first shoe.  It was such fun to do the alternating Scotch stitch using silk lame braid 18.  Even though it's intended for 18mesh, it covers well on 13.  Then using the new L metallics from Kreinik, I stitched the stars.  If you look closely, you can see where I added a French knot to the center of the star to fill the blank area.  I looked on the Kreinik website but couldn't find what they call the L series of metallics.  I think of them as lacquer because they are so shiny.  I don't like the black one, though.  It has a greenish tint rather than a black shine.  Kreinik has also added some new golds--here I'm using 3270 which has a red tinge.  I also especially like the 3280 which is more irridescent.