Hello NG,
I just found this group a couple of days ago. I am a German, but living in Hungary. More than 30 years ago I finished my first and only needlepoint picture, a horse's head, which got lost unfortunately. My mother taught me how to do it.
Then, this year in February, I all of a sudden remembered how much I enjoyed doing it and I had the urge to do something creative. In a store front (we have lots of embroidery shops here in Budapest) I saw a nice canvas of two riders in a forest. Since I am a very active horsewoman I fell in love with the piece, went into the store, bought it and started working on it, in half stitch. The needlepoint bug had bitten me!!! When this piece was finished, I was itching to do more!
Some years ago I visited the city of Bayeux and ever since then am a huge fan of the Bayeux tapestry. So my next piece was a scene from the Bayeux tapestry which I found in a store here. It gave me quite some headaches, since there were no instructions, and some of the design was not really half-stitchable. Today I would work it differently but then (a couple of months ago) I was worried about doing something 'wrong' that would ruin it.
Both pieces were framed by a professional frame maker, whose great skill made the projects look good even though they were not blocked.
I then discovered the Cluny designs and fell in love with them too. I finished the Cluny Deer in floss and am still wondering what to do with it really. Part of me would like to frame it but I also like the look of the pillows.
Being a bit sick and tired of mille-fleurs, I decided to do something simple and geometrical, so I worked on the DMC Izmir cushion.
One problem I have here is that there is very little literature on the topic of needleworking plus the literature that is available is difficult to understand for me, my Hungarian is not good enough for this. So for finishing techniques, I need to rely on foreign literature. I just ordered my first needlepoint book: The Needlepoint Book by Jo Ippolito Christensen. I hope that I get good pointers from this book on how to block my work and how to make pillows. I would need to build my own blocking board. Does anybody have any instructions :)?
I am now working on another Cluny tapestry, the chase of the unicorn. It is quite big and am a bit more than half finished now and have great pleasure working on it. Again, I am looking forward to my book arriving, to get inspirations and instructions for properly finishing it. It will be a wall hanging, that much I know already.
If you are interested in my projects, I have a web page of them (not the finished pieces, only reproductions that I could find on the net):