Pat Young wrote me a little note as I was nearing the completion of the Cluny miniature embroidery project, and told me about a needlepoint project that she began way back in the early 1990’s and had not finished. She tenaciously decided that she would finish it this year, and set about doing just that, tackling a little bit at a time, much in the manner of my 15-minute stitching philosophy (even if you only stitch 15 minutes here and there, you can make progress on a project).
Well, Pat finished ahead of her set deadline, and she sent a photo of the finished piece. And wow. Talk about tenacious! Here it is, and a little bit about it:
This design is called NOVA, by Genny Morrow, who is a designer of quilting fabrics. The project is made up of needlepoint (or canvas work) stitches, worked in 12 x 12 thread blocks, with 396 blocks in all, representing 396 fabrics designed by Genny Morrow. No two squares are alike!
The project is worked on 18 count mono canvas, using DMC stranded cotton.
Tent stitch, cashmere stitch, mosaic stitch, and scotch stitch (and variations of these) make up the little squares. Pat said it took an average of 45 minutes to stitch a square, give or take, depending on the complexity of the square.
The colors move from a brilliant dark to a faint light – like a nova (a star that suddenly increases in brightness then slowly returns to its normal intensity).
Congratulations, Pat, on a terrific finish! I think this is a super neat project, and a great way to get in a little stitching with a little variation every day!
If you like the look of the project, even though the book was printed in the early 1990’s, it is still pretty widely available. It’s a charted needlepoint project, and those interested in working it would buy the book in which the charts are found (a spiral bound book of all the charts needed to work the project). It’s not a kit, so you’d have to purchase mono canvas and the required threads separately. Nordic Needle carries the Nova project by Genny Morrow, but you can also find it by googling “nova by Genny Morrow” – there are quite a few places that offer it.
Thanks, Pat!
