The Needlework Show

First, a small caveat: This will not be a comprehensive review. I simply haven't the patience or the inclination to go through every vendor's entry in this online show. Instead, I click on vendor's who are new to me or on vendor's who are long-time favorites to check out their new stuff. I am reporting on only those of greatest interest to me.

One new to me designer was Filigram. This quirky French designer's work has a really distinctive look ... definitely not run-of-the-mill stuff. There is one series that reminded me of the pictures we used to make with photosensitive paper in elementary school science class: A10, Like a Flower; A9, Gone With The Wind; and A8, With The Stream. These designs are not negatives like those old time science projects but the seemingly random placement of the design elements is what I found similar. Then there is another series, A11-16, in which farm animals are juxtaposed with academic concepts in an almost Orwellian fashion ... I'll have to reread Animal Farm to see if that is the inspiration for this series in which pig : molecular science :: frog : geometry of a circle :: owl : Greek alphabet :: goose : decimal notation. If you are looking for strictly cross-stitch projects, look elsewhere ... these pieces incorporate surface embroidery stitches with cross stitch. While not visually reminiscent of Monsterbubbles, it does resemble that MIA designer inasmuch as the design ideas are completely out-of-the-box. So that empty niche has been filled. One last note: the designer's website shows all these projects with French words [naturellement] but the Needlework Show has provided the same designs with the charted words in English.

Olde Colonial Designs had a doll that caught my fancy, Miss Caroline. The doll comes ready-made as part of the kit ... all you need to stitch is a 32ct linen pinafore style apron in a lovely Quaker design with alphabet. I am a sucker for Quaker designs and antique dolls/look-alike reproduction dolls.

The other item that was new to me was a stitcher's networking site, The Stitcher's Village. This site is worthy of a second look. Although it is clearly primarily a shopping venue, there are amenities like classes, reference libraries, galleries, tutorials, chat rooms and message boards.

But for the most part, it was much as usual: lots of geometrics, a plethora of samplers, and the usual mob of the terminally cute.