A Sunflower is Born UPDATED

Robin King creates wonderful stitch guides for canvases for Amy Bunger, Needle Deeva, and other designers.  She also often posts about the stitch guide creation process on the Needlepoint Study Hall blog.  I've got a special treat--Robin talking about her newest sunflower canvas, with side trips into giant rhinestone needle magnets, orange dots, stumpwork, and well, MORE!
http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/2012/01/sunflower-and-berries-nd-309-part-one.html

http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/2012/03/sunflower-and-berries-nd-309-part-two.html

UPDATE:  Robin shows how she lifted the sunflower center to make it look realistic and also work well with the petals with a very clever beading technique.
http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/2012/03/sunflower-and-berries-nd-309-part-three.html

Then she adds silk ribbon petals.
http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/2012/03/sunflower-and-berries-nd-309-part-four.html

I don't think this story is over, so Stay Tuned for MORE.

Susan's Painted Pony Stitch Guides

When someone mentions Painted Pony Designs, I think of their little themed angels.  They do a lot of designs but those angels are really popular.
http://www.paintedponyneedlepoint.com/angelwc.htm

However, I should be thinking Stitch Guides.  Painted Pony has posted a list of guides for their canvases on their website.  There are plans for Susan Burris who stitches their models and who is writing the guides, to gather several guides together into a book.  I can't wait!
http://www.paintedponyneedlepoint.com/stitch.htm

You can see some of the stitched models that Susan has created on the Painted Pony Designs blog.
http://paintedponydesigns.wordpress.com/