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Sunday, March 31, 2024

Heart of Hearts - 3/31/24

March 31, 2024--For its 2024 community project, my needlepoint chapter, Delaware's Seashore Chapter of ANG, is participating in the Hearts for Hospice program and donating the stitched hearts to Delaware Hospice.  I chose to stitch a heart designed by Barbara Richardson called Heart of Hearts with instructions published in the 2008, Vol X, 1 issue of Needlepoint Now Magazine.  

It proved to be an interesting challenge, especially the "darning" pattern in the center column.  It was so complex that I had to draft the stitches on my iPad using the photo editing tool.   

I self-finished the heart, and as with other projects, learned a lot, especially the need to make the cording much thicker.  However, I didn't have enough floss to make the cord as thick as I wanted, so it's flimsier than desired.  But I finally figured out how to "wrap" the cord at the base of the heart to hide where the cord ends are plunged inside the ornament which results in a much neater finish.  

Here's the result....

Heart of Hearts Finished


Friday, March 29, 2024

Tumbling Stripes - Updated 3/29/24

March 29, 2024--The borders are now stitched, and this project is ready for framing.  I made one color change in the outermost border from dark red to dark blue.  I like the contrast much better.   The medium red in the border looks different from top to bottom due to the way the light shone on it.

Tumbling Stripes Completed

 March 25, 2024--All the stripes are stitched, and I will next work on the border.    I chose the same colors as the designer, Marily Owen, using the red, white and blue colorway, but my colors appear to be lighter than hers.  I also used 4 strands of the darkest RG Splendor color to fill in the "blank spaces".  Three strands, as instructed to use in the manual, proved to be too light in coverage and the canvas showed through.   I'm liking the results so far.

Tumbling Stripes with All Stripes Completed

February 1, 2024--I just finished the first seven or right-angle stripes of this adorable project.  The next 5 stripes will move diagonally to the left.  Those will be more of a challenge to work up since the edges of each stripe are stitched on the diagonal which will require me to pay more attention to stitch placement.  Here's what it looks like so far.

Tumbling Stripes Through Stripe 7

January 25, 2024--This interesting project, called Tumbling Stripes, is designed by Marilyn Owen and was offered by ANG's CyberPointers Chapter in April of 2021.  However, I never did anything with it and filed the .pdf instructions under "Projects on Hold" on my PC, thinking it would never see the light of day.  Well, it has now come out to play with the NJNA Chapter of ANG whose members have started working on it this month, and I've decided to join them (I'm also a member of the chapter).  

I like this type of project because of the wide variety of stitches and interesting pattern.  It has 12 rows or "stripes" repeated in 4 areas or quadrants.  The first 7 stripes angle to the right while the bottom 5 stripes (A through E) angle to the left, giving the appearance of a rolling or tumbling ball.  

I'm working up my project in the blue and red colorway and below is a photo of the first two stripes stitched so far.  

Tumbling Stripes through Stripe 2


Here's a photo of the completed project as stitched by the designer.

Tumbling Stripes designed by Marilyn Owen Project Photo


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Monday, March 25, 2024

Parcheesi Anyone - 3/27/24

March 27, 2024--This is a piloted project I stitched for Susan Hoekstra who will be teaching this adorable game board class at the 2024 ANG Seminar in Kansas City, MO.  Susan tells me the unusual colors and design were copied from an antique Parcheesi board.  The kit includes a line drawn canvas, instructions, threads, frame pieces and parcheesi game "men".  

I probably won't use the unfinished frame pieces supplied with the kit, but instead will have my framer set this in a black lacquered frame and add "footies" so it can sit on a table.  The parcheesi men supplied are also unfinished and the thought of painting these myself is untenable, especially after I had hand painted all the checkers in a previous pilot stitched project for Susan called "Game Is On".  Too fiddly.   I'm actually thinking of hitting some second-hand shops for an older parcheesi game just for the game pieces.  If I find one with all the playing pieces in colors that I like--that'll be that.

Parcheesi Anyone Completed

Below is a photo of the project taken from the seminar brochure.  If you sign up for this project, you're going to love the interesting stitches and scrumptious threads used.



Monday, March 18, 2024

Online Security - 3/19/24

March 19, 2024--Wow, have I been busy, but unfortunately not with needlepoint.  Recently my husband and I have become aware of the need to “lock down”, for security purposes, all of our online dealings, such as with email, financial, shopping and entertainment accounts.   This has entailed educating ourselves on the meaning and use of MFAs (Multi-Factor Authentications) that go beyond 2FAs (2 Factor Authentications where, in addition to using a password, a code is sent to your telephone via text to verify your identity).   


You can stop reading here if this subject is of no interest to you (and I wouldn’t blame you for that).

We felt secure with 2FAs, but not so much now that "sim swapping" has become very popular.  We understand that even if your mobile carrier requires a security code before they’ll work with you, or someone claiming to be you, there is no guarantee that a disgruntled employee of the company will not sell your data (and security code) to the highest bidder (and that’s already being done).  So now, as part of the MFA arsenal, are online authenticator “passkeys” which give you a code to verify who you are, but the code changes every 30 seconds or so and is not sent through a text, but through an authenticator app.  This means anyone who obtains access to your phone probably cannot move quickly enough to cause you any financial hurt. 

But I understand the very best thing for online security now is to use hardware passkeys like those made by Yubiko*.  The idea is to set up two passkeys (one to keep with you and one to keep in a safe in case you lose one).   The process is a bit involved, but supposedly worth it since your accounts cannot be hacked at all without your hardware passkey.  This last process in setting up the hardware passkeys is the one that's stressing me out the most.  We're also using biometrics (fingerprint and facial recognition) as often as possible.

Of course, the first line of defense against being hacked is to use a very long and complex 20+ character password that is different for every online account.   So, I purchased a password manager to help me keep track of it all and to generate those convoluted passwords.   This too took time (I love alliterations).

Lastly, we stamped the following phrase on our foreheads—thou shall never open phishing links from any source whatsoever (emails, texts, etc.).  NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!!   

If you’ve gotten to this point, congratulations!  And I feel your pain since you’ve probably gone through this too.  It has taken us some serious time to learn about, and set up, all the security measures--time I really wanted to spend needlepointing.  Oh well, and here’s the big sigh……


PS:  We haven't been hacked, thank God, but are aware of how sophisticated hackers have become in their attempts to bleed you dry, so we are taking preemptive steps to protect ourselves as much as possible.  And I hope my explanations are not too far off base.


*We have no financial affiliation with this company--just like their product.

Friday, March 15, 2024

2023 Year in Review - 1/2/24

 2023 Year in Review - 1/2/24

March 15, 2024--This is a duplicate posting of the Year in Review.  I accidentally deleted the original and am unable to recover it.  If you missed it the first time--enjoy.

January 2, 2024 - Happy New Year!!  

In 2023, I worked up more beaded items than needlepointed ones and loved doing them all.

I managed to complete the stitching of 9 needlepointed projects and 15 beaded ones. In September, I attended a stitching retreat hosted by Sandy Arthur of Duo Designs (designer and instructor extraordinaire) at Butler State Park in Carrollton, KY.  

Below are pictures from most recently stitched (December) to oldest (January).

Many have not yet been finished into ornaments, framed, etc.--I'm waiting to stitch all the projects in the collections before working them up into ornaments (e.g., Janet Zickler Casey's santa collection and Susan Portra's holiday ornament collection).

Also included in this list are the projects stitched in prior years that have been finished into pillows, ornaments, etc. in 2023.

Hope you enjoy looking at these pictures and walking down memory lane with me.  Click on the photo's caption to see more information about each project.





 

                                             




 


 


                                  Master Needlepointer Program of ANG - Stage 2

 



 


 


 


 


 


 



 


 



 


 


 


 



Beaded Bracelet Holiday Russian Spiral

 


 




Projects that were stitched in prior years, but "finished" in 2023:

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Saturday, March 9, 2024

Bracelet Beaded Filled Right Angle Weave - 3/9/24

March 9, 2024--Yesterday I took a class from Donna Baratta at the Rehoboth Beach Art League on how to work up a filled right angle weave bracelet.  She supplied everything we needed--beads, button for closure, thread, needles, lighting, scissors, bead mat, written instructions, etc.  Love this technique and we managed to get everything done in the time allotted (4 hours).  I now want to make this again, but two additional rows wider.  Here it is with silvery white seed beads and very shiny dark blue 4mm Czech fire polished crystals.  

Bracelet Beaded Filled Right Angle Weave Finished