12 posts tagged “sbq”

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

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.

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.

Since there wasn't one posted yesterday...here's the one from March 15.

If you had $500 to spend on stitching-related items, what would you buy?

Wow. Let my imagination run wild...
First, I'd complete my set of Q-snaps. I've got the 6x6 and the 11x11; getting the 8x8, 11x17, and 17x17 would run about $50. I don't know if I'd bother with the 11x17, since I could make one out of the 11x11 and 17x17 pieces.

Then, getting into patterns I've been lusting for:
Lynne Nicoletti's Pirate Treasure - the pirate face can be done with glow-in-the-dark blending filament for an uber-cool effect.

Some by Dracolair Creations: the Rune Sampler, Knotwork Winter, the Gaelic Banner, and Compass Rose - and probably the Dragon Knot bookmark while I'm at it. With the specialty packs for some of those (another $40), now I've spent about $150. Wow.

I also envision picking up a couple Victoria Sampler charts and packs. The Heirloom Family Sampler is grabbing me, definitely. Another $50, for the leaflet and accessory pack.

With all the lovely charts, I will need some lovely fabrics. I could probably easily drop $200 on high-quality fabrics for the items listed above - I'd especially want to do the compass rose, and maybe the pirate map, on fabric with a kind of parchmenty look to it, and the compass rose is huge - 20x25 if you do it on 32-count (mostly empty or I'd never even dream of doing it :) ). Silkweaver actually does have 32-count linen available hand-dyed that large - for $50. Criminy. Another $26 for the rune sampler and the pirate map, and there's about $275 spent. Yeah. I think setting the fabric budget to $200 will get me all the fabric I need...

...and there's $100 left for floss. After I picked up all the DMC I needed for the above wishlist, I'd probably drop the remainder on some overdyed flosses; Caron Waterlilies, maybe (I loved stitching with that on the VS bookmark I did) or some of the overdyed flosses specified for the town square shops I was planning to do.

(ETA: Fixed all the links. Oopsie.)

This week's question, found here:

How many WIPs do you have? How many UFOs do you have? When does a WIP become a UFO?

As far as stitching is concerned, I have 2 WIP's (TW's Tradewinds and Dragon Dreams's Blackwork Dragon), and (I think) 2 UFO's (TW's wedding sampler, for a wedding that took place 10 years ago, and a very tragic mini-stocking from 2005 that has all the stitching done but I never got around to turning into a stocking).

WIP's turn into UFO's when the intent to work on the project, if not the project itself, vanishes. The projects I rescued from a drawer and finished off a couple years ago were UFO's, definitely.

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

Do you collect charts by one particular designer, yet have never stitched anything by that designer? If so, which designer and why do you collect the charts but have not yet stitched any of them?

Not quite. I have quite a collection of Teresa Wentzler patterns:
- The Wedding Sampler
- The Minstrel
- Tradewinds
- Tapestry Cat
- Tea Scene

and the Big Book O' TW Samplers is on my Amazon.com wishlist.

I've started and abandoned the Wedding Sampler. I've started and continue to more or less work on Tradewinds. The others are in a drawer. But the only TW's I've ever finished are two of the freebie dragons: Stretch and Futurecast. Her charts are absolutely beautiful - but huge, and a lot of work, and to some extent kind of intimidating.

With the exception of your online stitching friends, do you have any other stitching buddies?

Umm. I do have, perhaps, four "offline stitching buddies" (defined as "someone I have sat down with in the same room for the purpose of cross-stitch") - but I met three of them at least in part because of online, and they've all got LJ's. I've known

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mightyafrodite

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jadecat

I met

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