INDEPENDENT NEEDLEWORK NEWS

Did you know Pamela Kellogg of Kitty and Me Designs has lots of really nice freebie patterns available? She designed these primarily as motifs for crazy quilters, so these freebies are the perfect size for ornaments, cards, scissor fobs, and various small gifts.

To make sure you don’t miss any of these cute freebie patterns, use Bloglines or another feed reader to subscribe to Pamela Kellogg’s blog where she always notifies her readers of the new freebies — and plenty of other good stuff!

Technorati Tags: Pam Kellogg, Pamela Kellogg, Kitty and Me, cross stitch, crazy quilt, freebie, free chart, Bloglines, feed reader, blog

Elegant Stitch is now taking sign-ups for the second session of Brightneedle’s The Lady’s Collection. Don’t wait, because although this is an online class, class space is still limited by the number of kits available!

Elegant Stitch is one of my favorite ways to take needlework classes because everything can be done from the comfort and privacy of your own home. You don’t have to worry about getting vacation time, traveling, paying for hotel and food costs away from home, bad weather, or even being late … The class kit shows up in your mailbox and your lessons are available online, so you dictate when you “go to class.”

Here is a scan of my stitching from the first part of The Lady’s Collection, which I took the first time Elegant Stitch offered it. I have finished all the stitching, but still have to put it together! If you’d like to see more pictures of my stitching, including on this particular project, please visit my personal blog.

Technorati Tags: Brightneedle, Lady’s Collection, Elegant Stitch, cross stitch, online class, Heather Orn

I did hear back from Ulrika Erdes in response to my questions about her public embroidery. I had asked her if she had sought permission to place her artwork, and if she’d experienced any difficulties as a result of being “caught” while in the process of stitching a piece of her public embroidery. Ulrika replied that she’d neither sought permission nor been caught.

Ulrika also shared with me that it’s been on her local television news that she is the artist responsible for the public embroidery, but that she has not experienced any negative outcome. Also, although representatives of the local bus company have stated they are against all forms of damage on buses, those same representatives have also said they do not consider Ulrika’s public embroidery to be the same thing as, and I quote, “ordinary scribble.”

In conclusion, Ulrika says it hasn’t been, ” … all that troublesome to engage in public embroidery, but everyone has to judge for themselves and be prepared to deal with possible consequences.” Personally, I would suggest refraining from performing public embroidery without permission (say that five times fast!) unless perhaps you are in a locale where graffiti is charmingly — and rather fondly — referred to as “ordinary scribble.”

Technorati Tags: Ulrika Erdes, public embroidery, cross stitch

I read an interesting post on Whipup.net about an artist who does, “random acts of ‘public embroidery.’”

The artist, Ulrika Erdes, describes her work as, “cross stitching performed on seats in buses and trains.” Photos from a couple of exhibits of her public embroidery are on her website, so it appears that either permission was obtained to create the embroidery in these public locations, or Sweden is more accepting of an activity which would be called vandalism in the US. Curious, I contacted Ulrika to ask for more information, but I haven’t heard back from her yet (I’ll be sure to let you know when I do).

While I can’t advocate wielding your needle just anywhere, I do encourage everyone to think about different outlets for their creativity. So if Ulrika’s public embroidery has me considering “mending” a few of the feline-created tears in my couch with cross stitches, rather than contemplating who could grant me permission to beautify the chairs at my local library, the point is I’m looking at my world in a slightly different way — and a fresh perspective is always worthwhile.

Technorati Tags: public embroidery, cross stitch, Ulrika Erdes

… it’s Friday, and time to check out Hoffman Distributing’s new releases for this week.

My must-have design this week is Lynne Nicoletti’s Embroidered Fortune Teller:

Technorati Tags: Lynne Nicoletti, Embroidered Fortune Teller, Hoffman Distributing, cross stitch, new releases