Sunday, April 22, 2012

Persian Tile - A Program in Two Parts

Our chapter has been having fun doing a program on “thread exchange” and using a color we may never have tried before. We chose Waterlilies as our thread to exchange.  It is the main thread used in Tony Minieri’s 1999 design called Persian Tile.  Over 16 members participated in the thread exchange and another eight did the pattern with their own choice of Waterlilies.

The objective of the program was to familiarize our members with congress cloth, color play, and laying silks. The chapter provided the congress cloth. In our first session we only stitched the center cross – being careful to match the variegated design of the twelve-ply silk around the 4 arms of the cross. When the traded threads were opened – there were many sighs, oohs, aahs, and oh no’s. The center four armed cross was the basis of choosing the remaining three companion silks to work with the cross, the metallic for the glitter, and the background color. The second part of the program worked the metallic designs, the crescents around those and the long armed cross around each. Since all of the stitches used 3 ply of the silks there was a lot of practice in using the laying tool. Also, choosing which colors were placed around the cross and which of the Waterlilies color would be the focal point was just as much fun as the stitching.

The finished piece was about 3” by 3” and could be inset into a smaller plastic coaster, made into an ornament or even framed. Sudberry House has beautiful wooden coasters – but their visible area is 3 ½” by 3 ½”.  The original design was modified and enlarged by 16 threads horizontally and vertically to fit inside the larger coaster.

This design is one of the free patterns available by Caron collection. It is a great learning piece that inspired many to do more designs with silk on congress cloth.






Original Design














Coaster Design















Saturday, April 21, 2012

Pacific Region Seminars

GPR Region Seminar 2012  -  A Touch of Glass
June 22 - 27, 2012
Tacoma, Washington

The 2014 GPR Region Seminar will be held in Reno.  More information to come.

EGA National Seminars

Santa Fe Enchantment
Oct 28 - Nov 2, 2012
The 2012 EGA National Seminar will be in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Winner by a StitchOctober 5-11, 2013
The 2013 EGA National Seminar will be in Louisville, KY

Dreams and LegendsOctober 18-24, 2014
The 2014 EGA National Seminar will be in Phoenix, AZ.

At the last meeting we put our needlecases together. (or at least started them)  If you have any questions about how to do them, contact Sue R. at Kelsey’s.  I watched Jill B. use glue backed felt for her case.  You don't have to sew the felt in.  I went and bought me a piece at Michael's to try myself.  There were many designs and all were beautiful and different.  So much fun!  Can't wait to post pictures of all the different styles.