Savile Row: The Spring Line

Where have I been for the past week? Well, painting mostly, in preparation for a trunk show next month at Old World Designs in Menlo Park, California. But I've also been noodling a new design for the Savile Row series--something a little lighter and brighter for spring, but just as dapper as the gents sporting their woolies.

If any of you read the September/October 2011 issue of Needlepoint Now, you may recognize the outfit on the fellow pictured here. I used Neville, an 11-inch-square design, in that issue to illustrate how easy it can be to replicate fabrics and patterns in needlepoint using simple threads and stitches. Geoffrey, the gentleman I'm introducing today, is a scaled-down version of Neville--only 5-1/2 inches square.

Because he's only one-quarter the size of Neville, Geoffrey needed to have the pattern for his houndstooth waistcoat resized, using tent stitches rather than the mosaic stitches worked in the original design. I also hope to use some different threads from the original in order to mimic lighter-weight fabrics.

I suspect progress on Geoffrey will be a bit slow, as I'm back in paint-by-day, stitch-by-night mode, but do come back to visit--I'm hoping Geoffrey will be as sartorially splendid as his friends!