Posts (page 2)

As usual, brought to us by Renée:

For seasoned stitchers: Define a stitching term or acronym for new stitchers. For newbies: What stitching term or acronym would you like defined?

Wow. This was a tough one - I've been in the cross-stitch net culture for long enough that acronyms just kind of slide past my eyes - but I remember in the question thing that went around recently, there were two terms that confused people:

Railroading: a technique for getting threads to lie parallel on the fabric. Instead of using a tricky, expensive laying tool, when going from the front of the fabric to the back, you pass the needle between two of the strands; in theory they should kind of loop around and straighten out. (This works for any number of strands.) Some people railroad both the top and bottom leg, some do just the top, and some don't bother. Some people have also reported that the floss kind of unplies when they do this.

SABLE: Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy. A condition where, given your rate of stitching and the amount of stash you've stashed, it's become physically impossible for you to completely empty your stash before you die. I might have reached this point, given the number of TW patterns I have stashed with every intention of stitching up someday.

Quick, simple, and to the point:

Do you have any pieces that you would liked passed on to future generations as family heirlooms?

Everything? Hee. In all seriousness, I'm very proud of the two traditional samplers I've done (City Stitcher's "Sampler of the Bees", and Little House Needlework's "Willow Tree Inn"), and I hope they're enjoyed by my great-great-grandchildren someday. In my stash, I have a few patterns that will probably result in heirloom-quality pieces - but I just don't see "that cutesy thing from a Dimensions kit" being passed down and cherished through the ages, y'know?

Beesampler

• I think I mentioned at some point in the past that knitting a sock always seems to go faster once you're past the heel. I'm going to stick by that statement - the individual rows on my first Jaywalker of the pair are going by zip, zip, zip. But I'm in a Knitting Black Hole or something, because the sock doesn't seem to be getting any longer. Maybe I cursed myself by trying it on? At any rate, I know the likely result of this is that tonight or tomorrow I'm going to knit one row and then discover that I should have started the toe two inches ago.

• I need to get a Spinsanity spindle of my own. Daughter picked one up at a fiber fair, and she's learning decently with it finally - but I tried it out last night, just to see what it could do. I took about 4 inches of roving from Daughter's ball of Crap Fiber, and turned it into about 6 yards of two-ply laceweight! - it came out similar in thickness to a #5 perle cotton. I do remember thinking at one point "Holy crap I'm spinning sewing thread"... I don't think I'm going to do anything with the yarn except maybe show it off, but my gosh I'm proud of it, and I'm almost tempted to cable it back on itself to see if it comes out sockweight.

• Hubby's grandparents are in the process of moving - they've sold their house to move into an "independent living facility", where Nana won't kill herself keeping up with the housework and there's assistance available to care for Boppa. So they've given the grandchildren a chance to claim any furniture or knickknacks they're interested in, and I told Nana, who also cross-stitches, "I'd like a couple of the samplers." She sent four - three she made herself (two traditional samplers and a really cool Santa piece), and one I wasn't expecting (mostly because she'd told me previously she wanted to hang onto it herself, but she'd stick my name on it for after her own eventual death): a family heirloom, worked by Hubby's great-great-great-grandmother in 1836, when she was 10. Some of the colors have faded, the linen has darkened, and little Martha A. Goldsberry didn't leave quite enough room for the motto so some of the letters are kind of jimmied in - but I appreciate the family heritage that goes with it as much as the art of the needlework. Pictures will follow as soon as we've found a good place to hang it (and the others).
  

The SBQ stands for "Stitcher's Blog Question", and is thoughtfully provided by Renée on a theoretically weekly basis - kind of like the meme I posted earlier this week, but one question at a time. :)  Regular use of Google Reader has made this much easier to keep on top of; it will hopefully appear here routinely.

This week's question:

How do you handle blended threads? Do you kit the blends up before you start a piece, or do you grab what colors you need and blend when the need arises? If you kit up the blends beforehand, how do you store them? Do you have another option for blends to share?

In general, I blend as I go - with the floss baggies I use, I generally have a loose 18" length of each color going at any one time, and it's easy as pie to just pull off one strand from each length and have at it. I'll stitch until that length is used up, even if it means (gasp) counting over to a new area to stitch.

The big exception: working on Tradewinds, and this could apply to any other "confetti" piece, I used a gizmo that consists of a piece of cardboard with slits in it, and a strip of magnet running down the center. The blended thread gets slipped into the slit, the magnet (theoretically - I've had one big accident with this) holds the needles in place, and I'll label the card with the chart symbol for the blend and the two color numbers involved. This could mean using a lot of needles - but I suppose there's nothing but the "omg what a pain" factor stopping someone from just slipping the floss into the labeled slits and rethreading the needle every time.

I found a meme-thing on the LJ cross_stitch group (although I had to go back about four jumps to Kendra's blog to find question #4 - someone dropped it along the way). Since I know you were all dying to know how I stitch...

1.) How do you hold your fabric? Normally on a Q-snap, these days. I might pull out the scroll frame if I've got a piece that's a good size for it, and I just did a teensy little thing in-hand.

2) Floss licker? Guilty as charged. I need to remember the thing where you fold the floss over and push the loops through the eye.

3) How do you thread your needle? As noted, I'm a floss-licker when I forget the thing where you fold the floss over.

4) What needle do you like best?  Unless I'm stitching on low-count fabric, I usually use a #26 tapestry needle - no preference to brand; it usually amounts to "what's cheap where I'm needle-shopping".

5) Are you a needle loser? My husband assures me that I am. He's usually the one to find them, sadly.

6) What fabric do you prefer to stitch on? I like Monaco and Jobelan - Monaco has a nice bit of body to it, and Jobelan is just so gosh-darn soft.

7) Bobbins or floss bags? Floss bags FTW. I never could stand the thought of winding all those bobbins for no good reason.

8) Are you a scissors collector? I'm more of a scissors-loser. I have two pairs of nice embroidery scissors, but I only know where one is at any given moment. Also a couple pairs of cheapy folding scissors, and one pair of kiddie craft scissors.

9) Do you do your own framing, and if so, do you lace or pin? For the most part, yes, although that may change now that I've actually had a good experience with a pro framer. I pin - someone once suggested Tidy-Pins, which are kind of like giant staples. They're expensive, but not as expensive as pro framing, and they won't work through the fabric.

10) Are you a floss floozy? Typically, I only buy what I need for projects...except that I picked up a lot of Caron Watercolors at a LNS that had them on clearance.

11) Silk? Yummy! More silk! If I knew where to get more colors than my LNS stocks, I'd go out of my way to use it.

12) Railroader? I typically do the top leg consistently, and the bottom leg inconsistently.

13) Are you a pattern or designer snob? I have a definite taste in patterns, but I acknowledge that my taste is not everyone else's taste, and I try not to judge. There are also a few designers I really admire (and also admire the tenacity of people who can complete their designs), and others where I just do not grok the appeal.

14) Do you get antsy when you give someone a stitched gift? Definitely - unless I've previously given the person something stitched and received sincere appreciation for it.

15) Have you reached S.A.B.L.E.? [...counts TW patterns in stash...] Yes, at least where patterns are concerned. I don't have nearly enough fabric and floss to stitch everything I intend to. I really kind of miss the job I had where I was able to stitch on the clock.
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16) Do you wash your projects? Unless I can look at it and verify that it is spotless, or unless I have reason to believe it will bleed. Latest method:  a soak and some squeezes in warm water and Oxi-Clean - although I do still have half a box of Ivory Snow from when it was actually soap instead of detergent.

A recipe:
1   Science project about crystals, involving a cup of saturated salt solution with pipe cleaners stuck into it
1   Knitting bag
1   Cat

Position science project on countertop, near edge. Position knitting bag on floor, directly below science project. Turn back on cat for less than 30 seconds.

Yields: One knitting bag drenched in saltwater, and one daughter disappointed by fate of science project. (Fortunately it was being done for her own amusement rather than a grade...)

On the bright side, the cotton and wool located near the top of the bag were absorbent, so the books and papers in the bottom of the bag barely got damp. The bag itself was a Meijer reusable tote; I'm not excessively worried, because I suspect that over its life it will have far worse things than salt in it.

On the downside, I'm hoping the salt won't do anything horrible to the wool and cotton; the salt crystallized out almost immediately. I guess I have laundry to do.

I went to Amy Singer's "No Sheep For You" presentation at the Ann Arbor District Library yesterday, and of course I brought yarn and...well...I think I was the only person there crocheting. Both my yarn-related WIP's right now are crochet projects, and since one of them was on a deadline...I brought the deadline project, a blanket for my impending niece or nephew. I am leaving behind the realm of pattern, and kind of free-handing something inspired by the "Log Cabin Moderne" blanket in Mason-Dixon Knitting. And the ladies sitting near me, knitters all, really admired the colors (bright orange, yellow, and green - the only pastel thing in my brother-and-sister-in-law's entire house is the blanket I made for their first baby), and the stitch pattern - I'm using granite stitch.

Granite Stitch has become my favorite "space filler" - it's very basic (just chains and sc - anyone can do it!), very fast since you only actually do half the stitches on any given row, and that also makes it drapier, lighter, and less yarn-hungry than plain ol' single crochet, and to top all that off you get a nice texture to the fabric. If what I need is a "rectangle, crocheted, no further specification", granite stitch is where I'll go. The nearby knitters asked for directions, and I wrote it out for one of them - but I didn't manage to get it to all of them. I think I heard some of them mention that they were on Ravelry, so I'm posting it here in hopes that they stumble across it.

First of all: a picture is worth a thousand words, but my data cable for my camera has gone walkabout. So we'll settle for ASCII art, which is maybe worth 350:

     XOXOXOXOXOXO <-2
1-> OXXOXOXOXOXX
     XOXOXOXOXOXO <-2
1-> OXXOXOXOXOXX
     XOXOXOXOXOXO <- Setup
     OOOOOOOOOOO

Here are the 350 or so words that the diagram is worth:

Setup row: SC in the second chain from hook. (Chain 1, skip one chain, SC in next chain) across. Chain 1 to turn work.

The "second chain" is why there's an O hanging off the right edge of that row on my diagram - it's the turning chain, used to make sure the first stitch in the row is the right height instead of squished. Since we're working in SC, this does not count as the first stitch of the row, which is why the symbol sticks off the edge of the diagram. The "Chain 1 to turn work" is why there's an O hanging off the edge of Row 1, and all the other rows.

At this point you should have a row of tiny mesh, although you may have to poke at it a bit to see the holes.

Row 1: SC in the first SC and in the first chain-1 space. (Chain 1, sc in next chain-1 space) across to the last stitch. SC in the last SC. Chain 1 to turn.

This is why granite stitch is so fast: after the foundation row, you're mostly not working into the chain stitches proper; you stick the hook under the chain from the previous row and work around it. SC into the first and last SC of the previous row gives us a nice selvedge. You should have another row of little mesh, offset one "box" from the row beneath it.

Row 2: SC in the first SC. (Chain 1, sc in next chain-1 space) across to the last stitch. SC in the last SC. Chain 1 to turn.

This should be offset 1 stitch from row 1, and match up with the Setup Row.

Repeat rows 1 and 2 for the pattern.