5 posts tagged “cross stitch”
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?
But keep in mind there's no accounting for taste; perhaps my grandchildren will take a fancy to that cutesy thing from the Dimensions kit. Take care of all your pieces as though you intended them to last 200 years, and sign and date everything!
- 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.
IA few years ago, I picked up The Cross Stitcher's Bible, by Jane Greenoff. I've found the book to be absolutely indispensable - the edition I have is a trade-sized paperback, not even all that many pages, and yet it still manages to include information about pretty much everything you could ever want to know about cross stitch, from the basics to using different fabrics and fibers for artistic effect to blackwork to beads and charms to "OMG how the hell do I do that fancy stitch?" - plus, a nice selection of patterns that show off all these wonderful skills you're picking up from the book.
Jane Greenoff will not hold your hand and your liquid courage while you make your first cuts in Hardanger. But she will tell you exactly how you're supposed to do it.
I was pretty thrilled when I found out there was an accompanying book of projects - I'd really liked most of the patterns in the book. And PaperbackSwap.com came through for me; a couple weeks ago one showed up in my mailbox.
All in all, it was disappointing; it's a much larger hardcover, and if you look at the table of contents, there are indeed a lot of projects listed - but somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of them amount to "Stitch a small motif or two from this bigger project, and finish it as a notecard or gift tag." I could have done that myself. And the bigger projects are mostly very, very traditional. On the bright side, sometimes I'm in the mood for traditional...the two big (5"x28") band samplers are just gorgeous.
That said, if I'd seen this book in the bookstore, the most likely outcome would have been a bad case of buyer's remorse. I would have thought "ooh, pretty" and brought it home - and then been disappointed at how little actual pretty there was. The cover price is $28 (or was at the time my copy was printed - it's a British edition, so it's quite likely more now), and if I had $28 in my "ooh, pretty" budget, I think I could get a better pretty-per-dollar from another book.
So to sum up: Cross Stitcher's Bible, indispensible reference material. Cross Stitcher's Bible Project Book, if you love that kind of thing, and/or can get a copy cheap.