First the bad news, after so much time at the same reliable price DMC has raised their prices.  I suppose they deserved to but still….It means I actually have to think when I price these kits.  Before I had it down, now I have to re-learn and my poor old brain has to re-calculate.

Brief break here while I brush all the cat hairs off my keyboard.  One of Jack’s very favorite places is between me and the screen, looking all pitiful and needy.

Ok, back to business (sort of).  I have a great new Jack picture.  I took the down duvet off my bed, and balled it up in the spare room, to take it to the cleaners.  Jack discovered it and has built himself a very cozy nest inside of it.  He hollowed out the center and made himself a vertical cave.

I am almost all caught up with replacing sold books, of course that is really never ending.  Some of them sell the moment I replace them.   The run on Bargello books has slowed down some, for now.  There are so few Bargello books out there and people are interested.

I still have all the patterns I stitched back when I offered Bargello Needlepoint Kits here on NewNeedlepoint.com.  That was way back in the beginning, when no one even knew my little store was here.   I only sold one of them and gave it up but….always with a mind to bring it back again.

Now that I am actually (finally) making some progress I might get that done this summer.  I do find that I get a lot more work done since K took that job in Dallas.  No distractions, pleasant or otherwise (like all men he is capable of both)

I am 1/3 of the way through listing the new canvases & kits that have been staring at me beady eyed for many months now, waiting for me to get to them.

Laurel Burch’s Cat Face is another of her wonderful and expressive cats.

I have 2 more brand new Laurel Burch’s to list.  Designs I have never had here before and I just finished putting in some replacements for ones that sold including Indigo Cats, which flew out of here when I first listed it.

Laurel Burch has a new series of Ponies as well, I have 2 of them in stock

I have 2 wonderful Jean Smith needlepoint designs.  These are being sold as kits.  You can buy them separately but they are kitted in similar colors so they can be used together.

The Zebra and The Toucan

In the same category, The Horses, Everywhere Horses Needlepoint by Associated Talents on easy to stitch 10 mesh canvas.

And Sharon G’s exotic Black Cat & Parrot needlepoint design

I have just listed 2 amazing designs by Kirk & Hamilton’s U.K. needlepoint designers.  Made in the USA, which is not as simple as it looks, lots of shading here and a great message  (oops, my web site is down, no links right now)

And Strawberry Cupcake (there I go drooling again)

From Danji Designs is this very fine Amish Farm & Quilts design.  As you may know, I live here in Amish & Mennonite Lancaster County, PA.  This is a fairly common sight when driving the backroads in rural areas.

and last (for now) is Ewe & Eye’s 4 Flowers.  Wonderful use of muted shades and unusual colors here, just lovely.

I have messed around with my NP kits & canvas categories.  There were getting to be too many for just the one category so I split them up.  Now we have Animals, Flowers & All The Rest (yes, it was like this before, you are not imaging it)

Last news blast.  I found a source for new copies of some of the more popular books I listed & sold used.

I now have brand new copies of
Dictionary of Canvas Work Stitches by Mary Rhodes  (for advanced stitchers who like to be challenged)

Decorative Needlepoint, Tapestry & Beadwork by Julia Hickman (not the usual book this, interesting ideas)

Charted Monograms for Needlepoint & Cross-Stitch Edited By Rita Weiss (this is a find, I have been unable to find even used copies of this book for awhile now)

Tapisserie, Hayat Palumbo’s excellent book on using needlepoint & decorating with needlepoint.  This book is usually in not so good condition used/rare.

whew, that is a lot.  I am still plugging along.  Expect more canvases & kits and my whole backlog of unlisted new books (Huge)

She said I was a *something* and she could buy her rare books anywhere and clean them herself.

And she sure can, I guess the only real “value added” I do is the cleaning & light restoration to the books plus the pictures.  Descriptions of the book’s condition along with pictures showing exactly the condition they are in.  Not to mention my reviews.

What that is worth, I don’t know but I do know that about 1/4 of the used/rare books I buy, sight unseen- as is the norm in the used book industry- are just terrible.  Unsalable (and usually listed as Very Good).

So, I guess what I do is not without some value, however small.

They keep discontinuing needlework books, books that sell well.  The 2 worst , for me anyway, recently were Iona Dittelbach’s wonderful Creating Contemporary Bargello

I have tried to contact her, to see if there are more copies, with no success .

The 2nd was Di Van Nierkirk’s amazing book A Perfect World in Ribbon Embroidery & Stumpwork.

I made fun of the title ar first, Boy, was I wrong.  A terrific book, I sold as many as I could get.  I did hear from Ms. Van Nierkirk’s assistant (relative) in South Africa.  They had a few copies left but the cost of shipping them to the US was prohibitive.

He did tell me that her Silk Ribbon Roses book is being re-issued.  I am watching for that.

Well, the latest victim (besides of course The Complete Illustrated Stitch Encyclopedia which I looked for as soon as I knew so I have 3 new & 2 excellent condition used copies)

is Susan Sturgeon Robert’s very helpful book Tips & Techniques for Needlepoint.

She calls is a booklet and it is a small relatively inexpensive book full of practical help.  I searched the net and found that Mrs. Roberts now just does teaching but I contacted her and got a very nice call from her husband Gene.

They have 10 copies left and they are sending them to me.

They also have some copies of her other small book The Thread, Canvas & Needle Handbook for Needlepoint.

which has been discontinued for some time now.  I ordered some copies of that, too.

These wonderful books are disappearing and it is depressing.

What else?  As you may know, I moved in here after the renovation in late September.  It is a townhouse condo so the beds right around the house (and in back) are mine to plant as I like.

Many of the shrubs were half dead, ugly overgrown stock builder’s shrubs (15 years old).  I kept the best and have replaced the others.  This has been fun.  My good friend Criag (husband to my very good friend Pam) is a landscaper so he helped me but I designed it.

Pictures to come.  I find that I missed gardening (or what I can do of it now) so this has been great.

I did a combination pot for beside the front door.  The basic rule for container plantings (which I read years ago in Fine Gardening Magazine & it stayed with me) Is Thriller, Filler & Spiller.  Easy huh?

Basically, the plant at the center of the pot should be upright and with some interest and “presence”.  The plants surrounding that should nicely fill in the space (there can be more than 1 kind for this) and then something viney should grow over the edges, soften it.

Now, many nurseries put these (or something like it) together but they always just shove stuff in.

Mine, which I put together today is in a zinc pot which I punched drainage holes in.  I put a spathiphyllum for the center.  It is upright with a nice shape, it flowers almost continually, upright white flows.

For filler I added peach color bloom Australian Impatiens.  The flowers & leaves are larger then regular impatiens, very pretty and will flower all summer if I keep them watered (yes, these are shady place plants).

For the spiller I used good old vinca, a variegated variety.

I will post a picture when the pot “takes” if you know what I mean.   Anyway.

That’s it for NewNeedlepoint.com (thought I had forgotten to do a link, didn’t you?)

As I think everybody knows, I do a small restoration of each book (tiny).  I clean the books, with special attention to the tops, where they gather a lot of dust.  I take off the dust jacket (if there is one) and see to it, so to speak.  I do whatever I can do to save it/make it look as good as possible.  This usually involves a large amount of Scotch Tape, Windex, Goo-Gone, soap & water.

Part of this process is the removal of all the stickers.  They put them anywhere and everywhere.  Some are easier to remove then others but all of them are a pain in the butt. Without exception.

The worst stickers are the ones on the covers of paperbound books or on the pages themselves.  These are almost impossible to remove without causing some new damage.

I suppose I should put this in context.  Any pre-owned (popular term meant to downplay the bad word, Used) book is more valuable if it has it’s dust jacket.

There is a point where the dust jacket is too far gone but that point is a ways away.

Removing stickers is tedious, exacting work.  Forget my manicure, I have small skin splits on the end of 3 fingers on my right hand.

There can be and often are, 3,4 or 5 stickers on a book.  I did one today with 7.  Why would anyone need or want that many stickers?

I know stickers are a sort of craft and kids often play with them.  Dentists now give them out instead of candy (when I was a kid we got candy from the dentist for being good)

But consider.  Stickers stick.  They deface things, they mess things up.  They are not (usually ) decorative, they are just another obstruction.  Think of Too Much Information. Stickers!

Ok,  I got that out. I feel better.

I am buying up all the 2nd market (used) Bargello books I can find.  I have also placed a large order for new Bargello books, what few of them are still in print.

I found 2 copies of Dorothy Phelan’s wonderful book:  Florentine Canvaswork, which is, of course, what they call bargello needlepoint in the UK. Ms Phelan’s book gives the thread or yarn amounts in both metric & US numbers. These are very good copies and I was glad to find them

Then I found a cache of Traditional Bargello, the US edition of the same book.   I will have them soon.

I was having trouble finding Barbara Muller’s excellent book Florentine Embroidery.  Subtitles : All You Need To Know For The Best Results.

In many ways it is more then just a Bargello & Bargello stitches book.  The complicated stitches are very well graphed, with many more repeats than just 1 or 2.   The colors used are extraordinary.

Barbara Muller’s Florentine Embroidery was first published in Germany in 1986.  This, the UK edition , was published in 1989.

These had gotten almost impossible to get.  In fact, I forgot to remove them from my book listings when I sold my last copy and in the new few days I sold 2 more before I figured it out.  ( Sometimes, I am not all that smart)

I have found some copies but they are costly.

The best example of price rise is Margaret Boyles Bargello: An Explosion of Color.

It is, in my opinion anyway, the best of the bargello books, old or new.  I may be prejudiced, I taught myself to do bargello with this book.

I started in the beginning, with easy patterns and kept on.  By the time I had reached the advanced projects in the book, I knew how to do Bargello Needlepoint.   Not expert but certainly competent.

When I first started listing and selling this book on NewNeedlepoint, which was pretty much when I started selling any books here, this was a reasonably priced used book.  It was harder to find but not at all rare.

In the 3 years since, this book has become difficult to find in decent condition and very expensive.   The price I am paying for each copy has risen to 12 times what I paid then.  And who knows how much more?

I was re-listing this today and realized it was my last copy   AWK.   I had not bought them in a few months, last time I had, I had bought a number of copies.

I went out “looking” for Bargello: An Explosion in Color and got a shock.   it is still not so easy to find but copies are out there.  They cost a lot.  More then I ever thought possible.

The funny part of this is (if there is a funny part) is that I caused this.   I have bought & sold so many of copies of this book, I lost count long ago.  I have created this rarity and price rise.

Anyway, I sort of freaked out and bought all I could find today listed as Very Good condition.  (who knows how they will really look, VG seems to mean something different to me than it does to second market sellers)

Anyway, that is what is going on.

So,  I think all the used books are replenished now (or about to be).   Next I am doing canvases & kits.  Look for them next week (and they really will be, I am not hoping they get done, this time.  I think)

Anyway, I am ok.  K is working down in Dallas and we have completed week 3.  So far, all is well but I tell you.  I really, really do not want to move again.  Then again I am quite fond of K and miss him. (understatement alert).

Last night (Friday), around 11pm I posted a listing for the last of my Dorothy Kaestner Bargello books (last in stock, anyway) 4 Way Bargello.

By 1pm today (now) it has already sold.   I have more on order.  I think I will hold my breath until I get them.

Wow, why am I complaining about this?   (am I complaining or bragging?…no idea)

Well,  that goes on however I have found a new source for needlepoint, needlework & Bargello books.  They have many, many books.  Some of them are books I thought were no longer being published.  They might be re-issues but who cares?

I placed a huge order today.  I mostly bought books I needed to re-stock with.  I was pleased to find new copies of some books I had been selling as used/rare including:

Decorative Needlepoint:  Tapestry & Beadwork by Julia Hickman

Tapisserie by Hayat Palumbo.  I still have 2 copies of that in used condition.  Hmmmmm.

I have found the American Version of Dorothy Phelan’s Traditional Bargello.  Up till now all I could get was the UK version which is called Florentine Canvaswork.  Not nearly as good a title.

I finally replaced my long gone copy of Rita Weiss’ Charted Monograms in Needlepoint & Crossstitch

And finally..TA DA…Mary Rhodes Dictionay of Canvas Work Stitches.  A crackerjack book of stitches for needle pointers which will challenge even the most advanced stitches…  New copies, imagine that.

I have once again had a “run” on my new & my rare/used Bargello Books categories

Link To New

Link to Rare/Used

A customer from Michigan bought most of the Bargello books I had in both categories  (and I was low on stock to start with).

She also bought The very rare & very good copy of Gay Ann Rogers Illustrated History of Needlework Tools

I had had it listed for some time.  I knew the right person would eventually come along.

To give you an example.  My rare/used Bargello books category had 28 books listed.  Of them 2 were unreplaceable.  1 was a Jane Zimmerman book.  I hope to add the complete (or almost complete) catalog of Jane Zimmerman books to NewNeedlepoint sometime this summer.

Of the remaining 25 possibilities, 18 were out of stock. Impressive huh?  Or maybe the reverse impressive which is pitiful.

I am busily processing some more replacement books.  I still am in progress listing more canvases & kits.

I have some new Laurel Burch and some new Melinda McAra.  She has added the Mets in New York and the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field to her line of baseball team & stadium canvases.

I hope to list them before baseball season is over  (m is not kidding, she is that slow).

The biggest story right now seems to be Barbara Muller’s Florentine Embroidery, which is of course Bargello.  the book was first published in Germany in 1986.  The translation is by Janet Winslow.

This is an amazing bargello book, a very beautiful one as well.   It always sold well when I had them in stock but all of a sudden I am swamped by orders for the book.

The Michigan Bargello lady ordered a copy, It was my last.  I forgot to remove it from the active listings last night.  By this morning I had 2 more sales of the book.

I took it off listing, who knows how many more sales there would have been.  I am wondering why, all of a sudden, this book is in demand.

This is more like what happens with the new hit books like Stitch Landscape by Stacey Tombros & Elaine Olivero

or both the Sandra Arthur Shapes of Needlepoint books (a new one coming soon)

Or June McKnights latest Bling, Glitz & Glamour for Needlepoint.  All my copies are autographed by June.  That is so nice of her.

Ok, I have forgotten where I was going with all this.

At any rate, I hope to have the Bargello Categories re-stocked soon (all ready for the next customer to whoosh in and clean me out, remember the lady from Australia who bought all my bargello books & paid the shipping too?)

Oh yes,  The Muller book.  As I said, I have no idea why this is happening (so much for having my finger on the pulse of the needlework book market).

I am looking for more copies but I am afraid the price is going to be much higher (MUCH).  I know people want this book but will they pay the price I will need to charge?

So, that my store news.  Me?  K took the job in Dallas.  He is more or less Temp for 6 months although it is a permanent job.  I will not even think about moving there until the 6 months are over.

 I am conflicted.  I love my home and this area.  These are the cherry trees out in front of my townhouse.

If you remember, I did a full-tilt renovation here and made this the home of my dreams.  K said we would always live here.

Surprise surprise.   And it is much better job for him for much more money.

Plus he is a sweetheart, in his own guyish way.  I got 2 dozen roses yesterday.

The ones below are lovely pink roses.  The vases are mine (of course)

The next dozen are pale peach/blush color.  Unusual and very wonderful.

(m sighs).  Like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, I will think about it all tomorrow.

Zac (my marvelous web tech and Yoda substitute) showed me on Goggle Analytics how many people find my  nice web store, NewNeedlepoint.com, from my blog.

I am convinced.  As things stand now my taxes and all the other returns I have to do are done. Every thing is done that needed to be.

I am on target to speed up the replacements & new items (sorry about the lock & load atmosphere, I watched The Unforgiven again, great movie despite all the gun fire)

This has been a hard year and it is about to get both easier & harder for me, both at once.

My husband, the famous K, has taken a job an hour west of Dallas.  This is a huge promotion for him and an enormous raise in pay.   The down side is that it is unsettled for 6 months, he will be living in short-term housing and I will be here in lovely Lancaster County PA (in my beloved dream house).

These new employers are generous, they are paying his housing for the 6 months, so we do not have that burden.

We will be fine apart, we have done this a few times before and survived it well.  He hopes to visit each month for a long weekend and he upped his hours on his cell phone.    Eventually he will either get a traveling or local position (big company) or I will move there.

I am not alone, Jack The Cat is here.  Want to see an example of what good company he is?

Anyway, what this does mean is that I have a lot of uninterrupted time to get stuff done.  I have already been quite productive, in the 2 days he has been gone.   K is very interuppty (is that a word? ) and it can be hard to get anything done when he is home (which he has been a lot of the time, working from home).

It is pretty typical, when he is busy, he is BUSY.  When I am busy I am not so busy in his opinion.  I can do it later. (if you know what I mean

So, another turn of the wheel (or should I say screw).

Enough for now.  I do not want to burn out right away.

All this has nothing to do with anything, of course.  Just me grousing….again.

March 15 was NewNeedlepoint.com’s 3rd birthday.  It seems like I *made it* , for now anyway.  Things can always turn or slide.  This is something I know well.

I let my stock get too low and am busily adding more, plus the replacements for the (don’t want to say many but ….many) books I sell.

Bits of news:  Melinda McAra, the excellent designer of such wonderful hand painted canvases such as

Fenway Park

and Yankee Stadium

Plus the Boston Sport Team Ornaments

has some wonderful new designs.   I have, waiting to be hemmed & listed

Mets At CitiField

Cubs at Wrigley Field

with more on the way.  I also have an amazing Boston Public Gardens & the Swan Boats canvas.  I do miss Boston.

As much as I love my super-renovation home here in Labcaster, PA I would like, someday, to move back to Boston.  My son is getting married next year and I have grandchildren hopes.

I keep searching for sources of new books to list.  I recently had an email discussion with a semi-famous needlework writer and needlepoint teacher who told me she only wholesales her books to “bricks & mortar stores”.   I replied that I though that was a mistake.  Many fine stores are going out of business and mopre people shop needlework on the net now (for which I am grateful).  She did not agree.

I found a source for Jane Zimmerman books, new.  Her paperbound books do not “age” very well and I have not found many used that are salable.  Ms Zimmerman is an amazing needlework writer, too few people know of her.  I hope to change that as much as I can.

I contacted Di Van Neirkirk in South Africa.  I had a nice answer from her assistant.  A Perfect World in  Ribbon Embroidery & Stumpwork will not be re-leased.  That is a disappointment.

However her Roses in Silk and Organza Ribbon is being up-dated and re-released.

As is June McKnight’s wonderful and helpful book Needlepoint Wisdom,  I have not had it in stock for a while now.  I will have the new one, as soon as it is available.

Rare/Used books are getting trickier to find.  I have had a couple of people offer to sell me their private book collections but both have wanted retail prices from me.

How can I pay them that and then re-sell them.  I can’t get more for them just because it is me (LOL).  I have competition  (how dare they!).

What else?  Google is closing Picnik, their increible free (unless you want the special features and even then it is not much money) Photo Editing site.   From Day 1 I have edited all my web stores pictures with Picnik.  I am going to miss it terribly.

I am trying to learn to use PhotoShop Elements.  I even bought a book (real paper book, no less) called Teach Yourself Visually: Photoshop Elements 10.

I hope it works.  I have tried almost every free or pay editing program out there.  None of them have everything I need.  The most often missing bit is an easy way of photo sizing.  Web sites are very picky about that.

Speaking of books,  you might have heard me mention my book.  I wrote a small book (a Booklet?  A Pamphlet?) called

NEEDLEPOINT STUFF NO ONE TOLD ME WHEN I KNEW NOTHING

Up till now I have sent it out for free with any Beginner’s Kits I sold.  I am still going to do that but I might also self-publish it and sell it, by itself.

It really is full of all those things that everyone else assumes a beginner already knows.  The genesis of this book was when I began stitching again, after stopping for many years (back them I was not very good).

This time I really took it seriously.  I had stitched up my first completed project, a rose on a leopard spot background (maybe some of you remember those designs).  I was so proud.  I took it into my LNS, where the owner had sort of mentored me in beginning to stitch again.

It was a Saturday morning so the store had a number of people in it.  I stood around and waited my turn, finally a woman I had not seen before working there came up to ask me if I needed help.  I said I did.  I proudly held up my completed canvas.

She sneered and  told me (pretty loud) I had to stitch 2 extra rows for the finisher.  (can someone say something or act in a sneering way, yes indeed).

I was humiliated, deflated like someone took the air out of me.  I slunk out of the shop.   I realize now that probably no one was judging me, but I sure felt it then.

I never saw that women working there again.  I became a very good stitcher.  As many of you know, I am not, in general,  a fancy stitcher, I love *Plain Stitch*.

( I am not sure but I might have been the one who coined the term “plain stitch”, maybe not)

I love intricate designs with little or no background, loaded with color.  I stitch along while watching old movies on DVD. (I have a world-class Chick-Flick DVD collection).  I am always happy and at peace during those times.

My stitch tension is excellent, I do a nice job, I think.  This is a canvas I stitched not too long before I began NewNeedlepoint.com.   It is, of course, a Maggie Graphic design

Anyway, the idea behind my book was that no one need ever be that ignorant or embarrassed again.    I had a lovely email from a lady I had sent my book to, with her purchase.  She told me that she & her daughter had taken a 4 hour Needlepoint Beginner’s Class but got more out of my little book than from the class.

Which brings me around to another thing I want to mention.  I have organized a beginner’s category . It has beginner books as well as kits.  My stock of beginner kits is very low, there will be more added as soon as I can.

Whew, that is a lot.   I am still reading Marian Chesney writing as M C Beaton.  The books are wonderful, escapist romantic fiction with a sharp viewpoint.  These are not simpering misses here but also not so modern as to make the whole  story ridiculous.  I think, over all, her series books are better then her stand alones.  Much more character development.  I am reading the 6 Sisters right now.  On Book One.

Well, that’s it for me tonight, no more random thoughts or flights of fancy.   I will try (hard) to write these more regularly (don’t hold your breath).

I am buried under taxes.  Each item I sold on NewNeedlepoint.com has to be priced, individually. It is a lot of work.

I had to do this last year but there were not (nearly) as many solds last year.  So, now the government makes doing good bad.    Go figure.

I am getting g a good overview of what did well, what not and places that need more work.  The new books were my big sellers last year, followed by rare books, then book & canvases/kits (on the same invoice).  Canvases & kits alone (on the invoice) is the only one left to do.

Then my investment results, then done for 2011 tax.

And back to listing.  Although I have not listed all the canvases & kits I have, I bought a few more and I have placed an order with Patt & Lee Designs.  I have not ordered Patt’s new designs in awhile now and my stuff is stale.

Patt now does Hand Painted Canvases, they are excellent, not just Glicee’ (I finally learned how to say that)  <glee say>.  A nice lady, Evelyn, who works at the Powers gallery in Acton, Ma told me and now I know.    I like this gallery so much I still buy from them (small stuff) even though I live in PA.

Otherwise it is all ok, early spring here.   My daffodils are almost flowered, trees are budded but still crisp & cool out.  Lovely days (when it is not gray & rainy).

I am still reading books & book series from M C Beaton, the pen-name for Marian Chesney.  They are light and sparkle.  Not classy like Georgette Heyer, more earthy and very amusing.  Easy reading after a hard day with numbers.

I still love my new townhouse.   More soon (when I can see over these tax papers) about all the suddenly discontinued books, with more of them everyday.

The few of you who have been along for this ride, since the beginning or almost, know that I have made many changes to nn.com since I began.  Many.

Now, as a somewhat veteran of the on-line web store biz, NewNeedlepoint does OK.  I have repeat customers, new customers and a few have become friends.

My book sales are amazing, many books pass through here.  I  do a fine used/rare book business  although some of the more popular books are getting very hard to find in good condition and very expensive.  Still. I think some of the older books are well worth my effort.   I sell lots of Bargello books, new & old.  There are so few of them out there.

I do an Ok with Needlepoint Canvases & kits business.  My Laurel Burch category does well.

I have been thinking, off & on, that I might do better to change nn.com (again) to all books.  Then again, my expansion into lots of different kinds of needlework books has not been a success yet.

I have lots of stock in both used/rare & new books on Knitting, Crochet (less then knitting) Embroidery,  Color Theory, an interesting Misc Books category & Cross Stitch including stump work, beading included in needlework, ribbon embroidery and so on.

I am not worried, I figure it will take the time for this change to “trickle down” like the store itself did, in the beginning.

Then again, when I think of doing just books, I get an unpleasant feeling.  Even though I have little time for stitching lately, I started this web store because I love needlepoint.

I bought the Domain Name Needler Books but I am quite attached to NewNeedlepoint.com and the name is getting known.  Many of the searches that bring people to my store begin with “NewNeedlepoint”.  Not New Needlepoint.

So, I am sorry I have bored you all t0 death with my rambling.

I did get some info on new book releases today.   Sandy Arthur’s newest book The Shapes of Needlepoint Series 3 will be Corners, Diagonals, Horizontals & Verticals.  The book will be released in August.

I could use corners, see how I messed up and fudged the corners of this Bargello I stitched with a Trianglepoint border.

and here’s another one with a triple Slanted Gobelin Stitch border that Dr Denise stitched.  I told her to fudge the corners.

Sharon G’s next book, I am pretty sure it is about Borders, is supposed to be released in March/April.  I am looking forward to it.  I need help with borders too .

The second book in the amazingly popular Stitch Landscape series is still being written.  No word when to expect it yet.

Ok, here’s a surprise for you.  When I finally (if ever) finish listing all the new books, new rare books and canvases & kits I have (and I am making progress there) I may reopen the Bargello Needlepoint Kits category

I closed it 2 years ago, no one seemed interested.  Then again, no one was interested in NewNeedlepoint back then.

Now I sell a lot of Bargello books, can hardly keep them in stock so maybe…..

Speaking of, I am in process of re-listing many of the used/rare books that have sold in the last few months.  Some very popular titles are being re-listed this weekend (no, I never have a whole day off, neither do I get a whole lot done in a day)

Shirlee Lantz A Pageant of Pattern for Needlepoint in Gift Quality condition. Never saw one this good before.

Working on Canvas by Margaret Rivers, mostly Bargello

Dictionary of Canvas Work Stitches by Mary Rhodes, amazing stitch book for advanced stitchers  (way beyond me)

Textured Canvas Work by Alison Park.  I can’t keep this book in stock, as soon as I list one, it sells.

Marion Broome Pakula Needlepoint Plaids in unusually good condition

Good stuff.  Took me too long to replace it, all due to my laggard ways.

I also have 2 Dorothy Kaestner Bargello books back in stock.  I had a really hard time finding salable copies

4 Way Bargello

Bargello Antics

and Barbara Muller’s excellent Florentine Embroidery

oh well, good night  (how did it get to be 3:22am ?)

“love is all there is”