Jean Smith has new flowers, singly and in arrangements. Highlights include a glorious red poppy on a rich teal and green background. It’s appropriately called “Dazzling Poppy.” There are also beautiful Gerbera daisies available in six colors. I also like the pairs of tulips, iris, daylilies, and hibiscus available in coordinating colors. Eye Candy has added “Let’s stitch!” to her series of words and sayings on backgrounds of colorful overlapping squares. Other new designs from them include six quails in oval ornaments and a series of striped ornaments in three different color schemes.
New from Kate Dickerson are Judaic Keep Calm canvases. My absolute favorite is Keep Calm and Eat Matzoh on a background that looks like Matzoh bread. it’s great! She also has lots of new squares to fit Planet Earth’s new larger jewelry boxes. A new fishnet animal is a regal cat, available in several colors. New from Renaissance are two canvases with Christmas toy houses nestled in a snowy landscape, and vegetable garden canvases featuring carrots and radishes.
Sally Corey has two gorgeous new abstract floral canvases, available in blue-and-white or mod colors. Her designs are available through PLD Designs. Also from PLD are new hamsa hands. Gayla Elliott has a new stitching lady. “Boss Lady” has the boss stitching in her slippers after a hard day at work. Love You More has a glorious piano bench cushion that has white shells on a lovely blue background. A rope border sets off the design.
The Princess & Me has a great assortment of new ornaments. I really love the Happy Birthday design that has wrapped presents being lifted by a group of bright balloons. Another sweet design has a dachshund, complete with an umbrella, galoshes, and a raincoat walking through the rain. A lovely vase of flowers is a great canvas for embellishment and ribbonwork. The included stitch guide is from Cynthia Thomas. Finally, there is a totally adorable baby fox.
Ewe & Eye has several new canvases featuring groups of animals, including dogs and pigs. Another new canvas features several Santas. New from NPJ (was Point2Pointe) are two colorful music ornaments, available as a round or heart. KCN has a Halloween Advent-style calendar to mark off the days in October. The company also has four charming new gingham pillows in different colors. Eva Howard is a new designer with many sayings canvases, some with camouflage borders.
New from Alice Peterson is a lovely sampler of blue-and-white tiles. There is also a row of three haunted houses as well as several lovely canvases of flowers in vases. There are some great patterned Christmas canvases, one of six triangular trees and a companion piece of a cottage surrounded by trees. Another pair of companions is a brick cover and a backgammon board in a combination of flowers and leopard print. other great designs include a sampler of hearts and one of ceramic vases.
Sew Much Fun has a ton of wonderful emoji canvases, available singly or in groups. They also have great ideas for finishing them, including as tops to Mason jars. They also have a new drinks canvas for Thanksgiving and a lovely and colorful striped heart in two sizes. Alice & Blue has a canvas of many different patterned skis along with some crossed ski poles. Funda Scully has many lovely new hinged boxes. These include villages in different seasons, a lovely lavender farm, liquor bottles, and folk art motifs in several colors.
New from Hello Tess are seed packets, two ladies based on modern art, and an adorable NYC bodega round. Also new from Tess are three fabric-based saying canvases with a border of the said fabric. Kangaroo Paw has new canvases for Planet Earth luggage tags. Besides the collegiate designs, there are several canvases with small motifs on a striped background. She will be expanding the items in this size. Also new are collegiate hearts. I just love the one for Auburn. It has tiger stripes on the bottom half.
From new designer Laura Love, you’ll find great decorated cookies and a bevy of flower seed packets in addition to her great celebration banners. Lauren Bloch, another new designer, has absolutely wonderful plaid canvases in many different colors. You can get these as luggage tags and as 3″ squares with space for a monogram. Lauren also makes the masked “little piggy” ornaments.
Rainbow Gallery has introduced a new thread — Silk Lame Plus. It is a flat thread coming in 36 colors initially. The colors are dyed to match Silk Lame. My sources say this thread is amazing for straight stitches on 18-mesh. House of Embroidery has revamped its collections. The new ones contain six coordinated colors in the same thread. The collections can be based on color, holiday, seasons, or theme.
Merry L has added adorable Ort bowls to her line. The outside is in felt with a lined inside in a cheerful print. The bowl is about 5″ in diameter and is reversible. Love You More has new limited edition sets of porcupine quill laying tools with matching beaded scissors fobs. Because they do not plan to offer these again and because the number is limited buy one as soon as you see them.
Valdani has some exciting thread news that will be welcome. They have now printed information about the thread inside the cardboard cores of their thread balls of pearl cotton. Now if you lose the label, you won’t lose the thread information. They are also using stronger cardboard cores. Beginning with the #8 pearl balls, they will be increasing the yards on thread balls by 10%.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
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