Charleston Scene
Garden State Home
Sometimes it’s really satisfying to stitch a custom painted canvas of a house where you live or that you lived in. A good friend of mine did just that, and here is the result. A lovely house in New Jersey, full of memories that will live forever. Great stitching, Marianne! She also did the Charleston street scene you see above it, a historic district known as Rainbow Row.
Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.
Sorry for the long silence, fans, but the thing is I’ve been holding down three jobs, while going to night school for video editing. 
Anyway, I thought I’d take time out from my incredibly busy schedule to show you what’s now in the pipeline.
Here goes.
The finished monkey purse, the NY Mets belt, the vivid Mary Engelbreit-inspired floral pillow AND three Raymond Crawford canvases arrived recently in the mail, all on the same day — it was a virtual needlepoint fiesta. The stitched pieces are well-executed by three talented needle artists.
I love the Japanese lanterns that Ray designs. In fact, I own several.
For a dyed-in-the-yarn Manhattanite, what could be better than a New York pastiche design? (Ray promises a stitch guide is coming soon.)
Finally, the Eagle Scout canvas is a gift for two young men. Congratulations, Scouts!
Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.
© Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.
Here’s another lovely Christmas present.
It’s a needlepoint collar that a thoughtful customer designed and stitched for her dog, Bentley. I love it. And as you can see, the finishing came out very nicely, too.
Major dog licks, tail wagging and kisses coming up!
© Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.
Here’s a gallery of some needlepoint belts and a needlepoint tote strap that I had fun stitching. As you can probably tell, I’m also really getting into the arty photography!
Anyway, here’s Needlepoint Land’s Quiz of the Day (my first, and, possibly, last!): can you guess what sort of glass figurine these items are wrapped around?
Hint is on the next page.
This needlepoint cabana belt is from Julia’s Needleworks. I did a few little pattern stitches here and there, nothing fancy, just the Smryna cross. I used overdyed Gloriana silk for the sky and decided to continental stitch it, since overdyes can be stripey.
Susan, from Voila C’est Fini, came up with a great idea for, ahem, when your belts no longer fit (not that this ever happens, of course): you can turn them into straps for tote bags! Either way, they make for great Christmas present gifts.
© Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.
Here are a few last-minute gifts that I stitched last Tuesday afternoon. Just kidding! It’s a collection of some of the Christmas ornaments I’ve done over the years.
Most of them are needlepoint.
Can you guess which are cross-stitch? (Hint: there’s more than two.)
These ornaments are from a variety of artists, including Squiggee Designs, A Collection of Designs, Liz, Kathy Schenkel, Princess & Me, and David McCaskill.
Although I love them all, I must say Squiggee’s Fashionista Burberry Lady is definitely the star!
Ornaments make perfect gifts. They can also help those in need. For instance, each year, a friend of mine donates a beautiful Christmas ornament to one of her favorite charities, which auctions it for a good cause.
That’s a really great idea, and I’m thinking of doing the same.
© Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.
I have a confession to make: I am a designer groupie, so to speak. That is to say, I am one of those people who go through phases with a particular designer. Painted Pony and Kathy Schenkel are among my perennial favorites, but I’ve also mooned over other designers, whose work I’ll show you later.
One of the ornaments in my Christmas 2012 Gallery is a memento to my favorite cat, Noëlle. She was my Christmas present to me, in 1995, when I worked at the Animal Medical Center, in New York City.
Anyway, I’ve put two of my favorite ornaments together in this Gallery (see Image 2) – the cabins, and the bear in the woods. By the way, I added the bell embellishment and the blue moon button, after I stitched these pieces, which is something you might want to consider, if you want to jazz up your needlepoint with bling that you find here and there in your travels across Needlepoint Land.
Of course, I had to have a dog and some cats ornaments! You might notice that the cat (Image 6, to the left of the Noel ornament) holding the tulips was stitched in wool and perle cotton. Over time, the ornaments I’ve stitched have included more and more sparkly metallics. There are many great shiny threads available now–you can get matte shines or ultra high gloss threads. Glimmery threads are so well-suited for holiday ornaments. Some ornaments I’ve stitched are completely done in metallics, as shown in the small, colorful owl in Image 16.
Do you like angel ornaments? They’re a lot of fun to stitch, and you can go wild with the patterns you decide to use.
The first Painted Pony angel I ever saw (the one on the right, in Image 15) was the New York City angel, which I came across at Annie & Company in New York. I am not an especially big angel person, but I like these a lot, especially the various scenes painted in those flowing thingies they’re wearing, not to mention, of course, their fabulous charms.
Well, those are some of the highlights I thought I would point out in this Gallery. Check back later for more Christmas goodies and present ideas.
© Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.
I want to show you some Christmas ornaments that I was given to finish. Aren’t they beautiful?!
I really love Christmas ornaments, and think of them as short little stories.
Sometimes a customer discovers a particular designer, and just has to collect every ornament this designer has ever done. (I’ve done this myself on more than one occasion.)
Or maybe buys an ornament as a gift for a special person, or to commemorate an important occasion.
Now some ornaments are deceptively simple to stitch.
Others have a lot going on in that little space that makes up the stitching area of a traditional-sized ornament.
Either way, often the stitching tells a story — particularly if a customer chooses some new stitches, or experiments with some fancy new type of thread.
Usually I don’t have to guess what stories might be behind the ornaments I send out to have finished: my customers will give me the full scoop!
By the way, the ones you see here are gifts for relatives and friends.
Aren’t they lucky?
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© Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.
Okay. Time to put up some Christmas posts!
First off, here’s an impressively large stocking that a customer recently gave me to have finished. I think she did a beautiful job, particularly considering that this stocking was stitched on 18m canvas.
Note the perky Santa who looks like he really doesn’t want to go back out in the cold snow, the princess standing in front of her brightly colored boxed gifts, the cute teddy bear, and other interesting details.
By the way, we picked the rich, cream-colored, ultra-suede fabric backing together. You can glimpse it on the piping. One thing to keep in mind about fabric for a stocking: always use upholstery grade material.
Some of you sharp-eyed stitchers might notice a slight wrinkle in the top left corner. This sometimes happens in transit, depending on how the finisher packs an order. All’s well, though, that ends well, and we sorted it all out.
Next, I’ll put up a few extra pieces that other customers gave me to finish for Christmas, and maybe top off my seasonal extravaganza with some items from my collection.
So keep an eye out for upcoming holiday goodies, and don’t forget: a beautifully stitched Christmas stocking always makes it that more special!
© Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.
