News from It's A Stitch of Charleston, SC

It's A Stitch of Charleston, SC Newsletter

February 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!

Dear

Happy Valentine's Day! It's already February, and for us, it's that in-between phase of our winter weather (and so many of you are feeling so sorry for us - especially our Northeast friends!) and the first hint of spring. The leaf buds have already formed on trees and bushes, and now we have days of temperatures in the high 50's and 60's.

What a January we had here at It's A Stitch! We saw so many new faces, and some returning customers who fled the winter doldrums elsewhere to see some sunshine and NO snow.

Many of us have spent the month of January "laying bricks"! In preparation for our February Tony Minieri class, we have been stitching the walls for our 3-dimensional walled Charleston Garden that Tony has created especially for us. Since each wall has TWO sides, this requires a lot of pre-work before we embellish those walls with climbing roses and other native plant material. We will be posting photos of our progress in the months ahead. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the weather will not create problems for our teacher and our students. We have students coming from NY, TX, FLA, IN, MA, GA, as well as SC.

We are happy to share photographs of some recently completed beautiful needlepoint and knitting projects shown below. They are truly inspiring.We love to see all the projects you are working on, or have finished, and would also love having photos of them to include in future newsletters.

Keep those hands busy! Linda, Margot, Jean, Pat, Lee, and Joan

Isn't this incredible?

Congratulations to Claudia Stowe of Pawley's Island for an outstanding job on this Lee Designs canvas

Claudia joined us for the first time last July for our Canvas Embellishment Class with Tony Minieri. He created the Stitch and Thread Guide for this piece, and the effects are fabulous. This is a 13ct. painted canvas, and as you can see, some wonderful things can happen on that larger count. It makes you happy each time you look at all the colors and designs.

Thank you for sharing Claudia!

Talk about COLOR!!!

Here is our own Jean Lewis who has finished her "Coat of Many Colors" - a real labor of love! Terrific job Jean!

Jean used Cherry Tree Hill sock yarns to knit all those squares within squares. The front border was created with smaller squares and set off with a lovely knit edge in blue. Jean spent many months deciding and plotting on the color and square locations.

Jean has created a lot of interest in knitting this unusual sweater.

Jean's Coat - front

A Charleston Garden

Phase One

In the coming months, we will share our progress on our Charleston Garden project with Tony Minieri.

Below are some of the walls stitched with bricked Cashmere stitches using one strand of Watercolors in two different shades. Showing here are the insides and outsides of some of the walls. The shorter walls will be joined eventually with a decorative "iron" gate. The medium size wall at the bottom of the photo (both inside and outside showing here) will have a "water" feature!

The second canvas has the insides and outsides of the two longer walls.

The third canvas will be the actual stitched garden containing native flowers, bushes, and trees!

Charleston Garden #1

What's New ?

Needlepoint

New From Leigh Designs

Pagoda series

Eight new designs

It's A Stitch has these two canvases coming soon. They were just introduced at the January TNNA market in California.

Leigh pagoda#1

Leigh pagoda#2

New from Colors of Praise Needlepoint

To introduce you to the wonderful letters Marie designs, we asked her to paint the following for our It's A Stitch shop. All we need now is the time to stitch our new sign.

Follow the link in the "Quick Links" section below, to view all her designs

What's New?

Knitting

This month, It's A Stitch is featuring yarns from two great companies - ARTYARNS and MANGO MOON.

MANGO MOON "MANTRA" AND "CHAKRA"

MANTRA - (NON-BEADED YARN)

137 meters/150 yards

Hand-spun

30% recycled viscose/67% cotton/ 3% spandex

CHAKRA

69 meters/75 yards

Hand-spun

30% recycled viscose/66% cotton/3%spandex/1% beads and stones

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ARTYARNS

It's all about color and luxury!

Beaded Mohair & Sequins and Beaded Silk

Beaded Mohair and Sequins

80% silk/20% kid mohair/glass beads and sequins

104 meters/114 yards

Size 7 needles ~ 4.5 stitches/inch

Beaded Silk

100% silk with glass beads

91 meters/100yards

Size 8 needles ~ 4.5 stitches/inch

Artyarns #2

Beaded Mohair and Sequins with Regal Silk above

Regal Silk( shown with Beaded Mohair and Sequins)

100% silk

149 meters/163 yards

Size 8 needles ~ 4.5 stitches/inch

Artyarns #3

Beaded Mohair and Sequins with Silk Mohair Glitter- shown below

Silk Mohair Glitter

60% Super Kid Mohair/40% silk with Lurex

285 meters/312 yards

Size 3-5 needles~ varies stitches/inch

Artyarns #4

Silk Mohair Glitter

Artyarns #5

Regal Silk

Artyarns #6

Silk Rhapsody

50% silk/50% Kid Mohair

218 meters/260 yards

Size 7 needles ~ 4.5 stitches/inch

Artyarns #7

Winter Blues Got You Down?

Cheer up with Tahki Yarns COLORPLAY COTTON CLASSIC CHALLENGE! It's A Stitch will be participating in this event between February 15 and March 25 . Go to www.knittingdaily.com and see how to enter!

VALENTINE'S SALE!

Stop in to shop at It's A Stitch between February 8 and 15 and take 15% off all full-price pink and red yarns in stock. Take an additional 15% off all pink and red yarns already reduced.

Also...

We have a large selection of needlepoint canvases in stock at 30-50% off, including a very nice selection of Christmas ornaments. Time to think about your next project!

Quick Links...

Our Web Site (under re-construction) www.itsastitch.net

Our e-mails -itsastitch@bellsouth.net and also at the following: itsastitchcharleston@gmail.com

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Please enjoy looking at the following links to the Needlepoint and Knitting included in this newsletter:

www.leighdesigns.com

www.colorsofpraiseart.com

www.artyarns.com

www.mangomoonyarns.com

www.knittingdaily.com

Contact Information

phone: 843-557-0401

fax: 843-557-0205