TNT - Poinsettia

 I have been so obsessed with needlepointing my poinsettia pillow top.

And Oh My Goodness!  I'm old and gray haired and I just this moment realized that it's not "pointsettia."  I have been spelling it wrong my entire life.  Well, and I guess I've been mispronouncing it too.  Good grief.

Anyway...

I've been obsessed.  I can not stop stitching!  I've even chosen to stitch rather than to snack! 

I'm quite pleased with how it's coming along... except for those holly leaves.  Based on their shape, they are definitely holly leaves, not poinsettia leaves.  I have stitched and ripped, stitched and ripped, stitched and ripped.... until I can't stand to rip any more.  They are just going to be what they are.  Slightly ugly.

Those leaves really have given me a difficult time.  First, I knit one full leaf and decided my color choice was awful.  Somehow, the dark green yarn I was using turned bright blue once it was stitched.  So it got ripped.

Next, I outlined four leaves and filled one in.  Now, the outline color looked bad with the fill-in color.  I ripped that out.

I outlined two leaves in a better color and filled one leaf in.  The outline looked a little weird and heavy but I'd thought the outlined poinsettia leaves had looked weird too and now I like them so I kept going.  I outlined four more leaves and filled them in.  Yuck!  The outline was just too thick and looked ridiculous.  I ripped the outline, but left the fill-in stitches.

Finally, I decided to forego the outline and just stitch the whole leaf solid, with the exception of the veins.  And I just think they look really weird.  But I'm done ripping.  I'm just going with the weird looking holly.  Three and a half more leaves to fill in and I'll be done with the colored part and ready to start stitching the background.  The background is what always gets me.  It can get pretty boring and tedious just when I'm sick to death of the project and ready to move on to something else.  

Wish me luck.  My goal has been to have this completed by midnight on September 30th.  I doubt I'll even have the holly finished by then, much less the background.  But maybe if I skip laundry, showering and meal preparation.....  

No, I still won't meet my self imposed deadline but it would be fun to try and a pretty good excuse to stay away from the laundry room and kitchen.

Many of you mentioned on my previous post that you'd never tried needlepoint.  You should!  It's super simple, you don't have to count (unless you are making up your own design on a blank canvas) and it's even more meditative than knitting.  

There are thousands of Youtube how to videos, but if you can cross stitch, you can needlepoint.  The needlepoint stitch is just a half cross stitch.  Just come up from the lower left and go down in the upper right.  Over and over and over again.

Needlepoint canvases can be expensive because they are painted with the outlines of where to stitch.  Sometimes the whole canvas is painted and not just the outlines.  It will depend on the complexity of the design.  But I really don't see why you couldn't use a cross stitch design on the needlepoint canvas as long as it uses whole stitches and not halves and quarters.  Or if you are the least bit artsy, draw your own design on the canvas using markers or colored pencils.  I've bought plain canvas and clearance kits that I didn't like before and used the canvas to draw random geometric designs which I filled in.  Sadly, scribbling is about the extent of my being able to draw. 

You can find needlepoint kits on Amazon, Etsy, Stitchery and various other online places as well as maybe even at your local big box craft store.  Sometimes yarn shops even stock them.  

As for the yarn used, there are lots of options.  I have used wool, DMC embroidery floss, cotton floss that comes in slightly bigger skeins than the DMC but are usually displayed in the same area at the big box craft stores and even silk.  For my poinsettia, instead of using traditional needlepoint wool (3 ply with a loose twist so you can easily pull the strands apart,) I'm simply using Palette from Knit Picks that I already had in my stash.

I hope you'll give needlepoint a go if you are ever looking for something new to try.  It really is easy to learn and do.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!