29 posts tagged “cross-stitch”

...the stash kind, of course.

The SEX first...last Saturday

losgunna organized a trip to ye olde LNS; in attendance were me, her,

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jadecat,

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mightyafrodite,

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sarbah77 - and Daughter, which surprised me a little given that she'd lost interest quickly the first couple times I'd tried to teach her to stitch. We had Rocking Horse shopping, lunch at Quizno's, and ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery.

I was good - I got only a piece of fabric for the Peacock Cypher, and that was only because nothing in my stash matched it very well. I oohed and aahed over the model of Butternut Road's Celtic Banner - and

losgunna caved and bought the pattern, despite knowing full well that she will probably never actually stitch it. (The darned thing is 4 feet long!) Nobody caved and bought Shepherd's Bush's America (Oh Beautiful) - the picture there doesn't do it justice, and there was plenty of oohing and aahing from all involved, but ferchrissake the kit was $80. And Daughter....got a pattern.

In the car on the way over, we'd asked her what kind of pattern she wanted. "A kitty!" - well, of course. "What do you think of butterflies?" got an "ehh". But "A kitty with a butterfly?" got some enthusiasm - and

sarbah77 and I both immediately thought of Margaret Sherry. Daughter chose Purr-Suit - yes, that's a bird, not a butterfly, but she liked that one better than the butterfly. Fortunately, I had 14-count Aida and all but one color of the floss already in the stash... (and it was all I could do to not immediately grab some of the ones where the kitties have yarn balls, but I've got plenty of stash and not plenty of cash...)

She's actually worked on it two days in a row, but she ran into a little trouble yesterday - she got the tail of the floss stuck in the stitching and worked with all four strands for a while, and while I was picking that out for her, I noticed that she'd made a counting error a few rows above. She decided not to pick that out - it would mean going almost all the way back to the beginning, so I don't blame her; I'll help her figure out what to do with it when we start filling in around that section.

On the photography angle - I was taking pics of some knit and crocheted FO's to put on Ravelry, and didn't like how they came out. Some of the folks there told me what the setting with the tulip on my camera actually did (it's a close-up mode, not an outdoor mode like I'd thought, and it's recommended for use when photographing knits, etc.) and that I might want to look into adjusting the aperture on the camera manually. I'm reading my camera's user manual trying to figure out how, and pondering taking a photography course...or just getting some library books on photography.

How many needles do you use during a project?
It really depends on the project. For a small one - I use one more needle than I lose. Hopefully that works out to one, but it's very often two or three. For a large one...well, it's still usually one more than I lose in the course of working on it. But...

Have you ever loaded up a needle for every color?
Working on Tradewinds, at one point, yes, I'd loaded up needles with every blend I was going to need in a given section. I've kind of stopped doing that, though, on the basis that I am a big girl and I can count. Keeping track of all the loaded needles got to be more of a hassle than occasionally needing to frog a small section, even with a magnetic card designed for that purpose.

Do you use a new needle for every project or recycle your favorite needle?
I don't know that I have a favorite needle, per se, but I hate throwing things out. I'll keep using the same needle until either it vanishes into the couch or it gets grotty enough that it can't really be used any longer.

This (or actually last) week's question:
If you could only stitch one more piece what would it be and why?

I'm really torn. If we're sticking with what's in my stash, it would probably be TW's Celestial Dragon - because it would take me a long, long time, and be incomparably beautiful when all was said and done.

If I get to go shopping on the dime of the person who's making me stop stitching after one last project...and maybe a little time travel thrown in...I just fell in love with Chatelaine's Medieval Town Mandala. Again, it would last me for a long, long time, and it would also be incomparably beautiful when all was said and done, and I'd get to spend all those hours stitching with silks (which really is a wonderful thing) - but in general Chatelaine is a little much for my budget (I've heard of people spending hundreds of dollars on the materials, never mind $20 for the pattern), and this pattern in particular is discontinued.

I'd almost forgotten about this. Anyways. This is last week's question; there wasn't one posted this week.

Are you on “The Wagon?” If so, how long have you been on and how “serious” are you about it? If not, have you considered it?

I am by necessity right now - my budget won't support a cross-stitch (or yarn, sadly) habit right this minute. I'm also very aware that I may very well have entered a state of SABLE* with regards to cross-stitch...patterns, at least. My taste for TW's and slow speed at stitching them will almost guarantee that. I'm trying to do some Stash Reduction this year, in terms of both yarn and cross-stitch, but I might splurge on the occasional item (e.g. I plan to check this weekend to see if Border's has the issue of the British "Cross Stitcher" magazine with the really good freebie in it - I justify that on the basis that it will be only available for a limited time, and much easier to get now from Border's than later from eBay).

*SABLE - Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy

Edit: fixed the title

This was the project I mentioned with the terrifying Hardanger. First, the finished product:

Victoria Sampler's "Antique Lace" bookmark. A lot of fun to stitch - I've never done pulled-thread work before this, either, and I loved stitching with the silk.

Sorry for the blurries. I hadn't realized how much my hand was shaking when I took them, and most of them, I can't shoot again...

	Before starting to cut.
	Withdrew a few of the threads.
	And some more pulled out in the other direction...
	Ack! Naked needlework!
	The finished product, with needleweaving, doves' eyes, and beading.

I tried some of the cuts with a method suggested on a website I was looking at - carefully identify the thread, cut it in the middle, unravel it to the end, lift it the way it wants to go, and then snip it, which is supposed to make it easier for the end to withdraw all the way under the satin stitching. I found that method to be a pain in the rear, all in all; I'll live with my little fringies. I plan to stitch some kind of backing onto it and then (gleep) cut it out...

Two WIP's, and a FO.

WIP: Teresa Wentzler's "Tradewinds". There will eventually be a boat in that half-circle area. My longest-running WIP - I think I started it in 2004. Heh. I will finish it before I die.

FO: Teresa Wentzler's "Knotwork Bookmark" freebie - a 'color your own' design, designed to be used with an overdyed floss. Picking the third color gave me such headaches - I'd tried to find a gold in my Floss-O-Dex that went with the overdyed and dark green, but the light green shade there was the one I ended up with. Calling it "finished" is stretching the term a little - I still need to sew the backing onto it. And now I can honestly say I've finished three TW patterns....this one, and the "Stretch" and "Futurecast" freebies. :) Fabric is light blue Jobelan; the overdyed was Six Strand Sweets "Patti Cakes".

WIP: Dragon Dreams's "Blackwork Dragon". As much as I complain about backstitch, you'd think I'd avoid blackwork like the plague, but once you find the rhythm of a particular pattern it's fun and easy. I couldn't find the Silk Bella the pattern called for - the only non-overdyed silk my LNS had was from a brand called "Splendor".

I feel a little guilty for having two WIP's - I haven't worked on Tradewinds in about a month. But I really wanted to get the fuzzyfeet done.

I've also got a series of pictures on the project I did with the Hardanger; it's getting a separate post.

I finished the Hardanger bit right after my last post - and it wasn't as intimidating as I expected it to be, once I got over that bit of trepidation sheer terror. I was also surprised how fast the finishing went - the needleweaving and doves-eyes were pretty quick to do.

I stopped working on my FuzzyFeet after finishing the first sock - not because of Second Sock Syndrome, but because I decided my chronically cold-footed sister needed a pair of her own. She got red. I finished her second sock in the car on the way to my mom's to give it to her (shhh!) and did the Kitchenering wrong on that one (shhh! again) but it shouldn't matter once it's felted - which I gave her instructions for doing. :) My second sock is on the "shape gusset" step. And looking at it, I think I need to learn to do short-row heels - my heels are just fuuuuugly.

And I keep promising pictures. I think this weekend? Someone smack me if I don't post them.

I'm doing my first project with a small bit of Hardanger in it - a technique where you bind off some of the threads, then cut them, pull out the cut threads, and decorate what's left. I just started the cutting. This is utterly nervewracking. I'm not sure whether I should have a glass of wine now to steady my nerves, or after to celebrate...or maybe both.

Really, the problem was the border around the frakking butterflies. The butterflies were fairly quick and painless, but the red-and-gold border just got to me at some point.

...and it officially answers to "Butterfly Triplex", a Dimensions Gold Petite kit. I started it in February 2005. Yeesh.

I've been working on Teresa Wentzler's Knotwork Bookmark, and it's both easier and more challenging than I expected.

Easier? There's only three colors, a lot of open space, no confetti...almost doesn't count as a TW at all. I started it last Friday. I'd have all the cross-stitching done, leaving some satin stitch (very fast) and backstitching (not too much, it's a small piece) to do, and I'd be done in under a week in all likelihood. Except...

Like the dragon I did last summer, the idea here is that...she's done the basic chart, but you pick the colors. This pattern, you start with one or more variegated flosses. Then you pick coordinating solids until you get up to three flosses total, and you're on your way.

I'd initially picked three variegated flosses, and I think I was colorblind that day, because they Just. Didn't. Go. Together. No way. No how. Nothing I could do with them was gonna do it, especially since I'd already had a light blue fabric in mind. So I dropped down to one - a purple-and-white pattern (Six Strand Sweets "Patti Cakes") - and stitched the center knot, figuring I'd find two solid colors to go with it.

I found one right away - a medium-value green (DMC 367). It looked great with the purple. Then I started looking for a third. For some reason my brain was fixated on gold. I tried one. Too bright. I picked it out. I tried another. Too orange, clashed with the purple. I ripped it out. I tried another one. It looked great with the green. It looked good with the purple. The combination of the three...well, it wasn't bad, but when you looked at the overall effect, the color that caught the eye was the gold, and I wanted it to be the purple - which could prove to be tricky given that the purple was fairly light. So I ripped it out - after swearing I wasn't going to pick it out again, and almost halfway done with that color. And then I came home and started going through the Floss-O-Dex, vetoed every yellow I had, swore, and started thinking outside the box.

Terra cotta? Looked good with the green. Didn't outright clash with the purple. Had the same problem as that gold I spent an hour frogging this afternoon - the eye picks out the one warm color in with all the cools.

Mauve? Too close to the purple.

And then it hit me. The magical mystery color was....another shade of green (DMC 503, if you're keeping score). Substantially lighter than the other green, and a bit bluer. It doesn't hide in the image - but when you've got Green, Green, and Purple, you're going to see the purple.

Score one for the Floss-O-Dex. :) I won't get it done in a week - but it might only be eight days. And if I stitch it again (which I might - this is a fun pattern and a good exercise in color theory) I need either a more neutral fabric, or a bolder color scheme for the central motif.