DMC needles Saturday, Apr 29 2006

These days I am more concentrated on gaming (Age of Wonders II) rather than stitching, but there's something to mention - an aquisition of a new type of needle. An original DMC number 28. They're neither a double-needle or anything special but are doing a great job. Initially I chose them because of the beading - such size of needles have a very thin eye and since I am using very small beads I bought them for this purpose.

 

It seems in US there's a different numbering system (not sure), but I wasn't able to find this needles online (on the US DMC site). Their article number is 1693.

This needles are a bit difficult to thread again because of the eye size. But to my surprise they appear to keep the thread so tight that they allow you to stitch without being afraid that the thread will go loose at some point and having to pull it back. In other words the thread stays like glued in the eye *g* I was a bit concerned that the tightness of such grasp might cut the thread in half while in the eye, but by now nothing like that happens.

All this makes you able to keep stitching with bit more of the floss than otherwise, so it creates less leftovers.

Very comfortable to use and perhaps even money saving. Recommended.

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Among the Roses finished Wednesday, Apr 26 2006

My part of the SAL is done, if one can say it that way?

A larger pic can be seen here: http://ternezia.multiply.com/photos/photo/9/27

What I did (beside finishing of course):

- saved myself the extensive beading around the hearts. I don't see a reason to put additional ornaments (mean beads) in there. - placed two kinds of beads, a light purple big ones and small dark blue-purple.

- screwed the hearts. An excuse would be that I am 1. stitching on eveweave for the first time and 2. the 25 count made it impossible to produce a smooth Satin stitch while following the line placement by the chart. I was forced to redo most of the areas with 3 strands.

- Did only the net in the center without placing an ornament in the middle. Yesterday while we went to buy a b-day present for a colleague we found a shop with many kinds of very nice small ornaments. No comparrison with the "turtle" used in the original; those were sturdy, of fine make and very cheap. But still I decided that placing any ornament (death knight's sword, anyone?) would be too much.

- Familiarized myself with a new type of stitch, Algerian Eye.

- the fabric is indeed a bit dark, it's not from the scanning. It has a kind of greyish shade - difficult to notice but apparent when comparing to a clear white color.

Generally satisfied, minding that this was a first attempt in many aspects - first time on evenweave, a first attempt in working on such kind of design and first attempt ever on creating an own color conversion.

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Blogging rant Sunday, Apr 23 2006

This is some rant on the issue of blogging about one's hobbies.

It seems that the reluctancy which can be noticed among my other crafty friends to start their own blogs about it, is not only coming from unaquiantancy with online blogging as it is. It is maybe also up to whether the person himself is used to do any kind of journalling or not. Me keeping hand-written journals since I was 13, is absolutely no effort and no issue to keep yet another journal somewhere RE my hobbies. But seems such "journalling universe" is something very distant to others. Indeed one needs to be an orderly person to be able to do this, and not necessarily orderly in their other life aspects - just to be able to keep track of *some* of their thought-process topics. Even not all. That's what blogging is about. It is interesting, but in my spiritual exploits I rarely do any journalling; exception would be to write down something definite or important to the progress of various things or write down some insights, chanelled info and all that which I want to especially have documented. But day-to-day spiritual life is not something worth the time to document on - how I felt today RE this or that doesn't matter to the whole bigger picture. With the spiritual, that which is written, no matter how many great truths are embedded in it, is yet transitory compared to the "point itself".

Regarding crafts, this is a different ground and a more "scientific" even - to blog about projects progress might not be helpful to yourself (because you know very well what you're stitching and where you got with it), but is useful for other people. For me especially, I know well that looking at someone's progress is not only educational but also is perhaps the best trigger to keep up with mine. But while browsing through the various feeds and webrings, I couldn't find blogs that address cross-stitch craft with the seriousness of the intent to indeed blog about *this*. Not sure my meaning is clear. The author's focus is very well sensed when you look at a blog, and 90% are just not focused. Exceptions are Melissa when it comes to personal craft blogging and Tangled Thread with the more general needlework and community oriented blog. Comparing these two to all the rest of the "Globe of blogs", the rest look rather more personal/daily life oriented than craft-oriented. It is not easy to keep a balance in a personal craft blog, not boring the readers with something that doesn't concern them (and why should it?), yet also not turn it into a purely technical manual without a living touch and presence of the author. That said, quality blogging is not an easy thing to do. Perhaps it requires a person to be at least a bit intelligent to be able to set particular goals or/and be clearly aware of "why I am doing this". Also to be able to gain "the bigger picture" of what is coming out and compare it to whether this is indeed what he's looking to achieve from such blogging process, and whether the result gives him the satisfaction he needs.  

And now I am going to mom's village to eat lots of eggs, have a barbeque, feed all the animal kingdom and generally have fun because it's supposed to be Easter.

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SAL progress Saturday, Apr 22 2006

Here is mine by now.

The part of the border that looks like white is actually silver. There are also Algerian Eyes that I did for the first time (and had to restitch my first one).

Am not much talkative tonight. Maybe because it is Easter over here; in any way Saturdays are always difficult days for me.

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Rowandean Embroidery Thursday, Apr 20 2006

Was showed an interesting site, a type of needlework I haven’t seen before. http://www.rowandean.com/

The final result of such 3D embroidery reminds me of oil paintings; at least one has a freedom to produce a gloomy sky effect for example, and overally to experiment with light effects. The threads seem to be mostly wool and the types of stitches are many and combined. This already seems to be more “art” than “craft” as imagination can be used to add certain mood to the scene.

 

I used to paint a lot of gloomy sky scenes and rural scenes. But am not sure if combining needlecraft and art will give me the same pleasure as doing cross stitch. These two are different (at least for me). Cross stitching invokes a sense of Order and creation, a micro-universe of some sort where you especially lay down every element of the big picture. Art is something where you don’t have definite borders and the freedom is big and often paradigm-breaking. The less definite is the material you’re using (paint vs thread) the less definite is the world emerging under the fingers.

Anyway, back to this embroidery style, I think that I’ll have to try to see if I like doing it, but will either need a lot of graphic examples to learn it, or have someone teach me. There are workshops and courses mentioned on the site, but they’re in UK.

…Well, whassup with being an optimist, or even more, crazy enough to break free from time to time from the common sense? Another reason….to go perhaps.

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A finish and a start Monday, Apr 17 2006

There was something wrong with the wordpress site bc it refused to open on Sunday afternoon. So am posting just now.  Firstly, the good news: The thing was finished, washed but from the photo is visible that I didn't managed to iron it perfectly. Mainly because the empty space within the border was too difficult to iron; the surrounding areas are too thick. Besides I was careful to not let the gold metallic restitch itself with too much ironing, and this is quite easy, believe me. And that's all for the African Lady. Something that I'd stitch again, a rare thing in general as there are too few designs that are actually *interesting* to work on so you'd want to go through the areas once again.

 

 Secondly, the "Among the Roses" start. Or "Among the Violets", heh.Immediately there appeared the first problem. Something that I however have no way to fix through changing colors. The evenweave count appears too big; I didn't noticed that when buying, out of lack of experience with evenweaves. This is an original DMC 25 count white evenweave, but when I started working on it noticed that it rather corresponds to Aida 14 than 16. That said, the final result will be far from delicate, and this is already visible on the scan. Especially minding that this design is very small and should be as fine looking as possible. I will be buying another piece of evenweave sometime, but don't have the desire to start it over.

However, as this is my first try on evenweave, have to say that this kind of fabric is very easy to work on. It is soft compared to Aida and that also will mean easier ironing. The needle goes through the holes faster and is very convenient for 3/4 and similar speciality stitches. But when it comes to the backstitching, it seems to be not so good looking exactly because of the softness of the fabric. On Aida the backstitch looks firmly laid, here it is barely trying to keep to its borders. Interestingly different aspects of the craft are reflected differently on various fabrics.   So far the stitched area here looks quite primitive (esp. with the butterfly). There's space for beads yet and an algerian eye, but by now I am satisfied with the colors.

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Conversion colors ver 1.0 Saturday, Apr 15 2006

I just went to the DMC website with the graphic table tool and the chart, and quickly did the ver. 1.0 color pick. It will be purple. Not any effort from my side to pay closer attention to every color - it is sure that the actual and final conversion will be produced in the process of stitching (and restitching). I usually adjust things as I go.

So by now:

225 -> 211

315 -> 333

316 -> 340

340 -> 932

500 stays

501 stays

502 stays

611 -> 939

712 -> ?

778 -> 210

3746 stays.

The gold metallic will be most probably replaced with silver. I bought 3 kinds of beads, all in mixed blue-purple gamma and will see which ones will fit best. Am tempted to start it, but have a bit more left to do on the African…

and that’s it by now.

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Just a little bit more left to do. Wednesday, Apr 12 2006

Decided to report the progress, although my big plans of finishing it by Saturday morning might not succeed. Will see. Want to have it done so to also frame it and show to the shop owner, otherwise she will have to wait until next Saturday. Why show it framed - of course to hide the back

I am in a hurry now because it is late, so didn't payed attention to the scan quality. And to be honest, there's not a little bit, but a lot more left to do on it before finishing. Gah. Work has been (insert something unpleasant here) so hope I will find strength to stitch tomorrow evening and on Friday evening. If not, ah well. Whatevah

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Just Nan Sunday, Apr 9 2006

Наскоро започнах да харесвам дизайните на Just Nan.

Винаги съм харесвала геометрични орнаменти, но предпочитам по-сложни, например като тези на Chatelaine. Въпреки това нейните са прекалено сложни за моята опитност в момента, така че някои от нещата на Just Nan са много подходящи за човек който тепърва се учи да работи с игла и геометрия Защото подобни дизайни всъщност никак не са елементарни за ушиване, макар че стила на Just Nan по-скоро спада към симплистичните.

Това е един от малките дизайни, който ми се иска да ушия, но тъй като точно него го нямам, засега планирам да пробвам с това:

Това ще бъде и първия ми опит на Evenweave.

* * *

I've always liked geometric designs, although prefer the more complicated ones, as for example Chatelaine. However for a person with not so much experience with such twisted projects as hers, Just Nan's designs are a good starter. Actually the geometric designs are not that easy to stitch no matter that for example Just Nan's style is rather "simplistic".

The first photo is of something I'd definitely want to do, but don't have, so I will be trying "Among the Roses", a small card design. It will also be my first try on Evenweave. Not exactly the colors I like (too much pink), but for learning purposes it will suffice.

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