New Canvases from Kathy Schenkel and Melissa Shirley

I am always so happy at TNNA to go to Kathy Schenkel’s and Melissa Shirley’s booths. They are always full to bursting with great new ideas and canvases I just drool over.

I love Kathy’s bone-shaped ornaments for dogs and this year she has a delightful new set. These are “Things Dogs Do,” all done in a clever, easy-to-stitch style.

She also has mini-socks and ornament rounds for a number of different colleges and universities that aren’t just the usual logo style, often they have iconic buildings or other symbols of the campus.

She also has new dog and people tote bags and new North Woods designs. There are two new Christmas series, a nativity and a stars of Christmas, people associated with Christmas in stars.

A very clever idea is her animal alphabet, available both as a panel and as individual letters. The animals are creatively posed in and around the letters. An unusual ornament series would be to do a name or initials this way.

As always Melissa Shirley has tons of new stuff, so I’ll only hit the highlights.

If you like her pears, but have been wishing for designs that were less geometric, you’ll love her new series that has a different fruit in each pear. With gold backgrounds and fruits and blossoms vining up each shape, they are both elegant and timeless. There are 10 in the series.

She has expanded the selection of her popular crackers with a Thanksgiving series, a new Halloween series that features some of her vintage Halloween characters, pink or gold Christmas crackers, and a set of Christmas toy crackers. There is also a new series of candy canes, mostly stripes, in a modern palette of red, white, green, and light green.

Her newest series is 3-D needlepoint cupcakes. Each design is in two parts, a top and the sides. There are designs for Christmas and Valentine’s.

If you have been collecting Christmas canvases in particular colors, there are conical CHristmas trees in fabric-like patterns in both green and gold. Her acorns have been very popular and a set of Christmas acorns has been added. Her banners have been expanded with a series of pumpkins for Halloween.

There is lots of new stuff from her licensed designers. My favorite of these was Debbie Mumm’s “Trick or Treaters,” a haunted house background with twelve Halloween figures. Three of these are animals,a cat, a raccoon, and some mice, dressed up for Halloween.

There are lots more new canvases including some great seashore and insect pillow designs, and lots of new Christmas stockings. THere’s plenty to love and stitch here.