To Celebrate it is a Leap Year and the 29th only comes around every 4 years
Heaven and Earth Designs is having a 29% off sale until midnight tonight ( usa time) there are some wonderful new charts, including a new range called Peek a boos.. if you check out the website you will see why they are called that!!
there will be a full end of week round up released later today
This week our Stitchers Spotlight stitcher is Rachel ( Timrachel) from New Zealand whose main Wip is Turandot by Kinuko Y Craft . It is being stitched 1×1 on 25 ct lugana
I’m a relative newcomer to Heaven and Earth Designs (HAED), but have so many charts I will need an equivalent number of lives to start/complete them all. I found out about HAED after visiting someone who had a chart which was nothing like the charts I’d seen before, and I had to have a look on the net to find out more..
I was so pleased to find at the time that they they were emailed, though now they download straight to your computer from the site. Living in New Zealand everything takes so long to get posted here, so this was a definite plus. And retails store here are really limited.
I have now been stitching HAED for about a year and am onto my third large chart. Turandot. Artwork by Kinuko Y. Craft. I am stitching her on 25ct (recommended for HAED) Lugana, (1×1 full cross).
Why did I choose this chart? How could I not. When I first saw the artwork something just screamed, buy me! I did, and I’m so pleased I did. Looking at the artwork you can’t get a true idea of the detail. There is a lot. It took a lot of courage to actually start her; it was the background I think that was my main holdup.
Once I got stitching and got to it though, I was so pleased to find that it’s not all black, there are greens and greys and they all blend perfectly together. I have been stitching her on and off since September 07, while stitching Quick Stitches as well, and haven’t grown tired of her yet.
I don’t know how long she will take to finish, and I will have other finishes before her, but she will always hold a special place in my heart for years to come.
Rachel has some lovely stitching posted on the HAED board and on the Website , she recently completed CC Kuik’s beautiful QS Serene Dawn
Stitched by rachel, 1×1 on 25 ct lugana
Welcome to the weekly update of what is happening in the world of HAED..
New Artists
Check out two new artists who will be appearing on the website in the future
Joan Marie Art whose charts will be released shortly,
They will include the beautiful Guinivere, Nikita , Unicorn-Purity , Lion – Mysterian as well as others
HAED is also happy to announce that Tom Cross has also signed to have his work charted
check out those wizards and beautiful flower fairy artworks!!
New Charts
Among The Mushrooms M. Dillman
QS Among The MushroomsM. Dillman
Spirit Of SpringR Tallamy
Blue RoseR Tallamy
Moon LeopardS Schimmel
Wizard II S Carlson
Mother Nature S Miller
Breath Of Light A McKertcher
Stolen R Marks
Melanoma W Kathleen
Plenty Southwestern Art ( B Brown)
Qs The City Mouse and the Country Mouse J Mastrangelo
Qs Bird of ParadiseCCKuik
New Finished Piece
A very fast Finish this week from Jan ( owl511)
she completed the Storykeep Flower Fairy’s Rest (M Harrison) in 15 days
stitching 1×1 on 25 ct
Thanks for reading this weeks update ..
keep an eye out on the blog roll to the right of this page over the coming weeks we will be adding sites/companies that HAED does recommends . This weeks addition is Ellen Million Graphics whose banner you also will see at the bottom of the HAED website page
jeannie-maree (aka Fudgey)
This is the first in our regular blog series on HAED stitchers, their wips/finishes and the stories behind them,
Sonya is a much loved Moderator on the HAED board and her stitching as well as her sense of humour always keep us entertained
Rose.. stitched on 32 ct Snowdrop lugana( Sugar Maple Fabrics) using tent stitch
artist Rachel Anderson
It seems like years but in truth HAED has only been in my life for just under 3 years and when I first discovered it, I plunged in head first (hands first would be more like it- grin). My mother used to tell me to finish what I started, like all mothers I assume and being European, having lived through a war and knowing what it was like to have to scrimp and save when she arrived with my dad and I in Canada with nothing but what they could carry with them… I grew up with the idea of being thrifty fixed in my head; to work on one piece at a time, finish one before starting another and not to buy something which I have no chance of completing.
A lot of things have changed in my life since my mother was around to guide me and now I am definitely on the road to being a serial starter (although that is up for debate and I am resisting that label). I have more charts on the go then I want to think about and so many lovely HAED charts still waiting in the wings that when Rose by Rachel Anderson was charted, I was in a terrible quandary: Do I or don’t I? She had caught my eye and hooked me but I was trying to be good. I told myself to wait until I finished something or at least wait until there was a sale and if I still loved her…well you know how it is! The horrible decision to wait or not was made for my by a sweet friend who RAKed me with her. (What an ange!l)
Now the decision making really started for me. I had the chart (with the background), so do I stitch it all or just remove the background myself and do I do full x stitches or do I tent? I love working on 32 ct so that was not a question.
I started browsing through the various fabrics that I had on hand and I am a stasher so I have a lot of pieces tucked away just waiting for the right chart. My problem has always been that of ordering a piece of fabric and after I received it, finding out that it was not exactly the way I had pictured it from the photo on the internet so… I have taken advantage of sales and ordered a few pieces at a time that I think will come in handy. As luck would have it, I found the perfect hand dyed fabric for my tastes, a 32 ct Lugana from Sugar Maple Fabrics : Snow drop.
I really did not want to stitch the background and this fabric sealed my fate, how could I hide the colours of this hand dye when it complimented the figure of the chart so well?
By the time I found my fabric, I had already made up my mind that I would “tent stitch” her. I had completed one QS in a tent stitch and loved it, the coverage was excellent on 32 ct and I was able to complete her in half the time. Time for me is an important factor. I know that I do not have unlimited stitching years, if I am lucky I give myself another 20 and considering the number of charts I want to complete, that is not enough time by any stretch of the imagination. These charts take some time so I look for ways to finish as many as I can while still capturing the essence of the chart. I hope I will do that with Rose. If there are other stitchers who would love to be able to work faster but are hesitant to do a x-stitch chart in tent stitches, I would encourage them to give it a try, they may just find out that they can do it, it looks good … it does of course depend on the count of the fabric and the tension used when stitching. I use one strand of floss and that seems to work for me and my 32 ct. If I were using a larger count, I might go to 2 strands if I did not like the coverage.
Rose is my feel good chart. She is one of those pieces that I can stitch when I am down or ill and she lifts me up. It may be the colours or just that she speaks to me but I adore her and so does my husband (who is always peeking over my shoulder when it is her turn in my stitching chart rotation). Of course it helps that it is beautiful artwork to start off with (Rachel did an amazing job) and the charting is so well done (Thanks Michele and Bob)…there are times I think that she comes alive as I stitch her.
I still have a way to go in finishing this chart and I hope to have her done soon…I would love to have her done by the end of the year but that might be dreaming in colour…if she had her way, she would be my exclusive stitch but she needs to have patience. Half the fun of having her done is in the doing! I think that when she is done, she will do Rachel and HAED proud.
just to show Sonya does finish some things she starts!! a lovely finish
Qs Autumn Winds stitched on 32 ct Fire Opalescent ( Sugar Maple Fabrics) 1×1
Artist .. Meredith Dillman also her full size charts
Hi everyone!
We have have joined the Tiny Treasure Stitch Along with our board and for those that wish to participate, please send me an email to michele@heavenandearthdesigns.com and I will send you a free Tiny Treasure of your choice.
We hope to see alot of you there and as a sneaky maneuver I will be posting my TT each Tuesday and you will need to guess from which artwork that it comes.
Have fun!
Michele
Welcome to the first HAED News and website update
This will be updated weekly with news from the website about new charts, artists, sales, etc so please bookmark
Nashville Market Update
Nashville was a blast with reconnecting old relationships with fellow designers as well as shops! We arrived mid day Thursday and began to get set up and thanks to all the wonderful folks that submitted models we were thrilled with how things looked.
We spent most of Friday (set up day) arranging charts on tables and rearranging models at least a hundred times. Then it was off to the store to get coffee, cookies and treats to feed everyone. We arranged baskets and props of little fairies, doilies etc and a sign with our motto: “Do not follow where the path may lead go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”.
We then felt ready for the flurry that would await us on Saturday morning at 8am – but only find out that registration started at 8am and we were left wondering why everyone’s doors were still closed at 8:30. Whoops – off to read the materials again “oh yes, it starts at 9am!”…. *sigh*
Promptly at 9 the rush began and it was a flurry for the entire day and when 6pm hit we felt like a mere hour had passed. We were full of pride and joy at the comments on everyone’s beautiful work and handfuls of orders.
We then went out for dinner and came back to process orders as we had rented a printer to fill orders as a convenience. We quickly realized that we had far more orders than we could print in a night. At 2:30 am we gave up and hit the sack to try and get a good nights rest for the following day.
Sunday morning the alarm goes off and we quickly put on the coffee and met with some old friends such as Maureen of Heart’s Content, Lynda of Forever in My Heart, Pat of R&R Reproductions and many others. We even got in some shopping!
Our room was flooded quickly with folks that had settled on what they wanted for their shops and people picking up orders. It was wonderful and as the day wound to a close we were exhausted and exhilarated! We formed many new relationships and even will be doing some featured designs on hand dyed fabrics from R&R and Stitches and Spice. We also formed a relationship with Valdani Threads and will be featuring their gorgeous fibers in some original designs that are on the drawing board. The first up will be a series of seasonal designs featuring garden centers and elaborate borders with blackwork in color!
We are most grateful for being able to see old friends and getting caught up on some tragedies and triumphs that we had been out of the loop on. We were even surprised by two of our distributors attending the show – Ralph and Carol of Colray Crafts in Switzerland and Giovanni of Cenina s.a.s. BI Calugi in Spain. We were very honored that they traveled all that way just to see us. We had dinner with Ralph and Carol and have been collaborating on doing some kits here in the US to try and lower the pricing of our kits for our US customers. Currently the threads are purchased in the US and then shipped to Switzerland where they are assembled and then shipped back out to US customers as well as European. It makes more sense to manufacture them here and thus resulting in lower pricing of the kits.
We have been invited to attend the St. Charles show with much encouragement from Roz of Acorns and Threads from our old stomping grounds of Portland Oregon. We are considering further shows both retail and wholesale as time permits but keep in mind that it is difficult with the workload and having two young Daughters and now two Grandbabies (the most recent born Christmas Day).
We would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for the success of HAED and bringing your requests to shops around the world. We are and will remain forever grateful.
Michele and Bob
New Artists welcomed to HAED
There are two new artists to welcome to the HAED Community Steven Paul Carlson and Dennis Lewan , click their names to see their web pages at HAED and for their websites, we look forward to more of their lovely art being charted in the future
HAED Finishes
There have been a number of finishes framed in recent weeks, and they look wonderful!
QS SeaStar ( Becket-Griffith) stitched by sugar peanut
QS Red Witch ( Dillman) stitched by Jeanette
QS Bubblehat Witch ( Harrison) stitched by Jan
Faery Tales ( Christensen) stitched by Komari
As well as some lovely unframed finishes
Qs A Wolfish Friend ( Becket-Griffith) stitched by Dance72
Qs Tomboy ( Fenech) Stitched by Lisa
if you would like your finished work on the website or to see a wide range of WIPS please visit the HAED Official Bulletin Board
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