Moroccan Needlepoint Coaster Stitch Guide

A new stitch guide is now available for purchase on my website (www.threadmedley.com). Just click the Stitch Guides Tab. It’s the stitch guide for the three Moroccan Coasters that I have shown here on the blog. As usual, the stitch guide costs $5.00 and will be sent to your email address as a PDF. I hope you enjoy working on these coasters.

Moroccan Needlepoint Rug #3 is Coming

It’s time to decide on the next rug to design and stitch in my study of Moroccan rugs. I added a map to the website to show where they all come from. I’ve done a small red rug in the Zemmour style from the area near Rabat, the capital. Then I did a rug from the Middle Atlas Mountains area – the blue rug. Now I’m going to move to the South of Morocco and do a rug from the Anti Atlas area. The rugs from this area are very different from anything I’ve shown you before.

This first photo is from Alia at http://kantaracrafts.blogspot.com  It looks like a quilt, doesn’t it? This also has a border all the way around – another difference from what I’ve done before. Another example I’ve found is below.

The colors are different – lots of brown, orange, gold. They alternate patterned squares with solid colors that have motifs on them. I’m still working on a layout, but I’ve made a few decisions. I’m doing the rug on Congress Cloth with cotton threads. I will also do some of the squares on 18 ct. canvas with Sheep’s Silk (50% wool/50% silk) so I can estimate how much thread will be required to do the rug on 18 ct. 

I’ve started gathering things together, thread and canvas, but I’m not ready to start just yet. I need to study these photos and others I have to decide the patterns and motifs that I want to work into the design. I hope to have something ready in another week so I can start stitching.

Terry Dryden’s Flower Diamonds

I love to play with colors and threads when it’s time to start a new project. But sometimes it fun to see what another designer is doing with color as well. I’m a ghost stitcher for Terry Dryden’s Flower Diamonds piece. She’ll be teaching it at the ANG Seminar in September. It’s on her website under Teaching Portfolio.  http://www.terrydryden.com/teaching-portfolio/    Scroll down toward the bottom of the page to see Flower Diamonds.

When the kit arrived at my house, I dumped everything out on the dining room table. I can’t believe all the beautiful colors and the many kinds of threads that are included! And all the beads too! 

There are four kinds of silks, silk ribbons, Kreinik braid and 1/16 ribbon, cottons, and linen. Terry says she doesn’t expect everyone to stitch it exactly the same. There are places where you can personalize it. That’s one of the reasons there are so many beautiful threads to work with. Some of the threads are new to me, so I will enjoy learning about them. I’ve never made silk flowers before and look forward to learning some new things. I’ll put up one post along the way and a photo when I’ve completed the piece. I really want to thank Terry for letting me participate in the Pilot Stitching for this piece. I’ve loved it from the first post she did on her blog when she was designing it.

Moroccan Needlepoint Pillow Done

I have completed the pillow, to disappointing results (to me anyway). After doing the Blue Rug, everything seems bland, so-so. Not every design is a good one, but I’m learning with every project.

I ran into several problems. The count on the center square must be off – doing the off-white background ends up off at every intersection. The last row of background is different depending on which corner you look at. The darker brown border presented a different problem. After having trouble with the background, I wanted a stitch that could be used around the entire piece without have to change directions constantly. I decided to use the Brick stitch over two threads. All the stitches go the same way. Maybe it needs to be wider or a darker brown. I’m not thrilled but it’s complete and I’ll move on to other things.

And the other things include a new Moroccan Rug from the Anti Atlas in the far south of the country. Information about this will be posted next week as it’s on the May list of things do. Be prepared for something very different!

More Arabesque Needlepoint Tile Colors

I always want to try at least three color combinations when I create a new coaster design. You saw this version of Arabesque last week.

These are traditional Moroccan floor colors. But I wanted to try other colors as well. I started with a dark blue overdye cotton floss and added white around the blue tiles and a dark red accent on the border. 

When I started this tile design, I said that it looked like a little flower garden. So the third version of the design is done with an overdye in olive green and two shades of rose. It’s from Needle Necessities and is called Hydrangea. I manipulated the colors as I stitched. I would start one of the flowers. When the thread changed to olive, I would stitch the little triangles between the flowers. Sometimes, I cut the thread to give me more of the rose colors. The background was done in a light olive green. Again, all the threads are cotton.

Just changing the colors makes a big difference in the finished piece. Just let your imagination drive what colors you choose. This could easily be done in solid colors as well – four or five colors. You could make the flowers several different colors or shade the flowers to be light on one side and darker on the other side.

This design plus two other Moroccan coasters designs that I’ve shown on the blog before will be in the next Stitch Guide that I’m working on right now. It should be available by next week. Then I’ll do another set of three patchwork designs. I’ll post here when they are ready.

A New Laura Perin and Colors

Laura Perin came to our ANG Chapter meeting this month and I was happy to finally meet her. She lives only 15 miles from me. She assisted us in starting her piece called Ribbons of Harmony. We had a list of the threads she used for the project, but were encouraged to pick out our own colors. It was fun to go around the room and see all the different color combinations that people are going to be using. You can see Laura’s patterns on her website at http://laurajperindesigns.tripod.com/index.htm   This pattern is listed under Samplers.

This month we’re just working on the borders. I chose this set of threads for the project.

I’ll use the apricot colors for the borders around the outside of the project and the borders for the ribbons that will be stitched on the inside. The outside border is just about done, using only perle cotton #5.

At our next meeting we’ll work with Laura to create all the ribbons. As you can see from the threads I chose, the ribbons will have lots of olive green. Most of the greens are metallic ribbons. Petite Very Velvet is suggested as one thread to use but I couldn’t find a green that would go with the ribbons I had selected.. We’ll have to see what I come up with for that part of the design. I’ll post again when the piece is completed next month.

Now back to stitch guides and ideas for a new Moroccan rug.

Thread Medley Website is Up

It’s taken 8 days, but the new site is now available for viewing. It’s the same URL as before – www.threadmedley.com

The site goes into detail about how to Adapt Art to Needlepoint. I’ve set up a step-by-step description of how I adapted the blue rug. The Moroccan Tile adaptation page has been started. The patchwork quilt adaptations will be up soon.

So please visit and check it out. There’s an email link on the About Jan page and the Inspiration Resources and Links page.

Tell me what you like, what’s missing, what you want to see more of.

A New Needlepoint Tile Coaster

Time for the third needlepoint coaster based on Moroccan design. Here is the tile pattern that I selected to adapt.

It’s an edge pattern, but I decided to create a coaster based on it. I started with the complete motif in the center of the image above. I used an overdye floss for the squares and a lighter shade for the small triangles. (This came together very quickly on Monday and I forgot to take photos along the way. So what you see in the first two photos is a second one I started in a different color.)

Since I wanted to create a square pattern for a coaster, I expanded on this small motif by repeating the center (four diamond shapes together) in all four directions. That game me a cross shape. I then added the four diamond shape to the four corners as well. This is what it looked like at that point.

The first thought I had when I got to this point – it looks like a small flower garden. I should try this with bright flower colors and green to fill in the spaces. Maybe on the next version.

The centers are square, so I filled in with a large Scotch which is 8 stitches square. I marked where the border would have to be to make a three inch square for a coaster and found I had room to continue the squares around the outside edge with a little filler stitch over the points of each diamond cluster. Then I added a double border using the lighter color from the triangles and a much darker shade for the last border. This is the finished version, done in the terra cotta colors.

I’ll go ahead and finish the blue version and then try the “flower” version. I’ll post photos when they’re done.

The original tile has been rolling around in my head for several months. Monday, I pulled the threads and started and it was done by evening. Sometimes everything just works out and I don’t have to rethink any of it. It’s nice to have a new project that didn’t require any ripping!

Moroccan Pillow Update

The blue pillow is coming along, but it hasn’t been easy.

I stitched the little corners of the underlying square in medium blue using the Diagonal Mosaic stitch. I didn’t like how it looked – too light – so I ripped it out. Then I came up with the idea of doing the stitches that were over two threads in the medium blue and the stitches that are over one thread in the dark blue. This is easy to see in the photo above. When you back up a little, it gives more of a solid color look and is not as dark as the dark blue or as light as the medium blue. I like this better.

Then it was on to the background. Again, I didn’t like the stitch I had chosen and ripped it out. Tried a second stitch and ripped it out. Decided to wait a day or two to see if anything better came to mind. So now I’m stitching using a straight stitch over four threads and following the triangle shape from the underlying square.

I didn’t want the stitch to go in the same directions for the entire design, so I’ve stopped the background stitching at an imaginary diagonal line going from the corner of the top Milanese box up to the outer edge of the design. I don’t like the space where the two stitched white areas meet, so I will have to do something about that when it when the background is finished. I still have to add a darker brown border after the background is completed. Here’s what it looks like right now.

Not exactly as I had imagined it, but okay. Not thrilled, but okay.

Thread Medley Website is Down

I wanted everyone to know that I started the transfer process today. The old site has been stripped of just about everything and will go silent at any time. The new site is almost ready to go and I have created it all myself (with the help of my Mac). Here’s a little sample. As you can see, it’s nothing like the old site. It’s about Adapting Art to Needlepoint and explains step-by-step how I go about it. I’ll be adding content as I have time over the next few months. I’ll post again when the new site is up and ready for its debut.