Need for Needlepoint

Oh where, oh where is Meighan Morrison? 

I bought this Vintage Meighan needlepoint kit around 1998.  It came in a sleek printed carry bag.  There were three colorways.  The ad was in the back of Martha Stewart Magazine (I think).

This was such a lovely canvas to work! I started it during an ice storm, worked on it by kerosene lamp, and finished it before the end of that year.  It was like chocolate!

When I finished that canvas, I searched for more Vintage Meighan needlepoint, and I have not been able to find her designs anywhere! 

Have any of you run across Vintage Meighan or Meighan Morrison designs?

Google and I have spent quite a few late night hours over the years searching for Meighan.  There is a Meighan Morrison writing children's books with a quilting theme. If this is the same Meighan, we need to needle her to return to needlepoint!

There is mention of a Meighan Morrison Designs in Fairfax, VA., contributing to a fund-raising effort.   

Beyond that, *POOF*!  No more Meighan!  I could understand if Alien life-forms kidnapped her because they wanted to go with a Victorian-Vintage makeover in their spaceship, but you'd think they would return her to continue to create designs for the rest of us!

I wonder what Renoir would think about his art being turned into needlepoint?  I've admired Renoir's work, but I've never enjoyed his art as much as stitching this "Girl With Hat" tramme needlepoint kit.  It was my introduction to tramme, and I was hooked on the smooth finish of the "padded" stitches.  You can see that I added a sage green border and a small ivory accent border to increase the canvas size and add presence to the canvas.

This and other Renoir reproduction kits are  all over the needlework catalogs.  I might do the "Girl and her Dog" as a companion piece....or I might not.  Not much of a challenge here.

Here is Casa Lopez's Fall Wreath, another in their Four Season set that I talked about the other day.  I discovered that I have never finished the coral-red apple!  I started working the apple in petit point, wearied of that, and put the canvas aside for a while.

I can still "see" the apple in petit point.  Probably I will pull out the full-size stitches from the apple and do that pettit point on a trip.  Probably, next month I should ask Leona Cole of the Stitch Niche in Gulfport about using some different thread for the petit point.  That would work better than trying to separate the individual threads of the existing fibers.

What do you think?  Petit point apple or standard apple?  Let me know!  Still searching for more Casa Lopez canvases.

The 2006 project was the happy little Westie canvas.  We had just adopted Molly the Westie Rescue from Louisiana Westie Rescue, and I wanted to needlepoint a Westie canvas and have Molly's beautiful strands of hair become woven into the tapestry.  (I must talk about Molly soon!)

The little photo in the bottom right corner of that canvas shows the lovely salmon-coral background color of the original printed canvas, but I am glad I changed to a Robin's Egg Blue and used a different needlepoint stitch.

It still needs something.  Maybe some thin pinstripes in the background like a striped wallpaper?  Maybe a needlepoint border around the design?  On eBay, I found a scrap of some perfect silk upholstery fabric for just a couple of bucks to make the back and a border of a pillow.  What do you think this canvas needs?

The last show-and-tell for today is this reproduction-in-needlepoint of John Constable's "The Cornfield". 

This was my birthday present to my mother around 1979.  She had just completed 12 needlepoint chair seats, and I thought this would be the perfect new project for her.

Well, after a short while, Mama put this canvas aside.  She just didn't like trying to figure out how to put in the colors on a printed canvas.  There are many judgement calls when stitching a pre-printed needlepoint canvas. Mama preferred the precison of counted cross stitch, and that became her passion.

Years later, I picked up the project, and fell in love with the process of painting with thread!  The little company out of England that produced this kit has long since closed.  The shading and blending is primitive compared to the designs that are more easily available today.

Here is the original painting in all of its multi-tonal glory.  Breath-taking!

Have you noticed that none of my finished canvases have been actually made into anything?  I am noticing that too.  What am I waiting on? 

How many finished needlework pieces are lurking around your home, waiting for a frame or a pillow form?  Am I in good company?  *grin*

Comments

[Madeleine Williams]

I purchased a Renoir "Girl with Hat" needlepoint canvas today at the Austin Stitchery Guild's annual show. It is an old Bucilla decorator needlepoint, and it was packaged with another Renoir canvas of a girl in a flowered hat. I have spent quite a while online searching for the painting, and I'd almost given up and decided that it must not be Renoir but "in the style" of Renoir... So thank you!

[meighan morrison]

Hi, the aliens have returned me. Unfortunately I went out of business long ago - I am a better designer than a business woman.

Lovely to know that some of you found enjoyment doing my needlepoint kit, though.

Thanks for the appreciation!

Meighan Morrison (yes, I also do children's books)