Soooo, I just had to stitch up some of these myself and learned that our local library in Georgetown, DE, where my needlepoint guild chapter meets, would be happy to have them as give aways to their new card holders, avid readers, etc. I found some lace edged Aida fabric bookmarks on Amazon which are perfect for this purpose except, in my opinion, they are a bit too wide. Nevertheless, I have them and am happily working away on them whenever I need a small, easy to carry project (in the car, at stitch-ins, etc.). Since they are supposed to be reversible, I "finish" off each bookmark by sewing across the top and bottom to catch the threads so they won't pull out.
I'm now tackling a bookmark with a reversible blackwork pattern. I went on YouTube to learn how to start and stop threads and was disappointed to see that most of the videos treat blackwork as black thread on white cloth embroidery, but NOT reversible. Fortunately, I have a decent library collection of blackwork books such as:
Reversible Blackwork Book 1 by Ilse Altherr, 1978
Blackwork & Holbein Embroidery Book 2 by Ilse Altherr, 1981
The Heart of Blackwork by Ann Strite-Kurz, 1992
Below is a collection of twelve bookmarks stitched so far. I especially like the one with hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds since I'm an avid casino goer. Each picture shows the bookmark's front (left side of photo) and back (right side of photo). Most of these have been worked up using a stash of discontinued RG metallic threads given to me by a friend. Each bookmark takes anywhere between 12 to 20 yards of thread, so I am happy to have this stash.
I finished this one some weeks back and it is with the finisher. I am now completing my last Santa, the North Star. Recently my LNS had a JZC trunk show and displayed all my Santas which have all been finished as ornaments. Now I just hope I can fit them onto what I have planned for the display. I will be lost without a JZC Santa to do!!
ReplyDeleteI too love working up Janet Zickler Casey's santas. I've just ordered the "Bottoms Up" Santa for 2024 from Shining Needle Society.
DeleteI am not familiar with the Shining Needle Society and have only purchased all of my Santas through my LNS. There are other JZC designs I am interested in, but I’ve been told by my LNS that they are not available through their distributor as they are still being taught as a class. Can you tell me how to go about being able to order from the Shining Needle Society? Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteThe Shining Needle Society is has IO Group site and can be found at:
Deletehttps://shining-needle-society.groups.io/g/HomeRoom
Hope this helps.