Violin Player finish Thursday, Aug 31 2006

 Firstly, the tech details.

She’s 14/31 cm, worked on cream evenweave 28 count. Only with about half-centimeter it went outside scanner borders, but I decided to leave the pic this way. The original color scheme for the hands and face felt to me a bit doubtful, so I changed it to the color scheme from CM, with darker backstitch. I also modified all the rest of the backstitch to darker colors. 

Now the essential part.

I did all the backstitch at once after finishing the cross stitch, not during the rest of the process as I use to. I was, honestly, very much surprised what she turned into. Like if she did it herself, this birth-transformation. She has a very interesting feel, like carrying a dimension together with her. An old, medieval-like feeling, of a church or chapel musician. Definitely “something”, and this is the first design I worked that reaches this effect.

I’m already fully convinced in the quality of Artime designs.

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Speaking of birthdays… Tuesday, Aug 29 2006

I will try to ask my relative to order me this.

http://cgi.ebay.de/Dimensions-Tuscan-View-NEU_W0QQitemZ190024616604QQihZ009QQcategoryZ34021QQcmdZViewItem

Most probably it won’t be a gift from anyone, just something from myself to myself. But the bargain is really good, when I saw the price I told myself, you *must* get it. 16 euros! Reference: in my LNS both medium and large kits cost above $35. Another reference: Sew and So  sells it for 21 pounds.

If he manages to order it I’ll also have to wait until he comes to BG. This might take a few months, but hey, it’s worth waiting. He could give my postal address and the shipping costs won’t be much higher, but until at least two or three years more there is a possibility along the way someone to “decide” the parcel as his own.

Wish me luck. Now I’ll be bad and again torture with picture. 

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Saturday, Aug 26 2006

Using this early afternoon time to scan some more progress. It’s almost heading toward finishing, after this last row there are arms, shoulders and the face. I’m very curious how all these will turn out. And I like observing how the upper parts of the dress fall smoothly and create a shadow. A well-designed piece. She appears to be very tall, my money-saving part anticipates that the frame cost will not be low. But I definitely want to frame her, this is a design with style and strong atmosphere. Lets imagine a dark green frame with tiny golden inner edges.

CM is currently nailed on a frame as well. Well only some parts are nailed, other are clapped. If I nail everything the fabric that is yet to be stitched will be damaged. I think to try this ”self-made stand” first.

I also spoke with an artisan’s guild member to exchange experiences of handling such large projects. She said that although the “experienced needleworkers” out there are mostly doing large tapestries, neither are using any kind of stands. “You ought to be kidding, to hold a meter wide fabric in hand while working on it?” But seems it is so. The good ol’ conservative approach is to derive another weight of value for the finished piece instead of finding something to easen the work process. In practice, I doubt anyone would care how much one tortured himself along the way.

Minding that all those people are also quite adverse to cross-stitch, I don’t think I’ll find any helpful advice in there.

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Blogging and habits Wednesday, Aug 23 2006

“Since you started blogging, have you noticed any difference in your stitching habits?”

Quite so, that’s why I’ll answer this one.

Blogging about my craft definitely has an effect on it. Perhaps like many others I have a few RL friends to whom I can show or tell about what I am doing and they to understand my perspective. Craft blogging is never a solitary thing, one has no way to know how many people actually read your blog and who they are but still no matter if not knowing each of them, I get a feeling of being a bit more surrounded by like-minded audience.

For me the actual “energy” to stitch comes from many sources. But reading (or seeing) other blogs with such theme also does something. I’m an extravert, so things from the outside work better for “charging” me to later sit and endulge in stitching.

Another thing is my blog became a “part of my craft” or a kind of “continuation”. Since then everything I do also goes to the scanner and from there is reflected in the blog. That’s why I am often picky or grumpy on blog issues like template, features, etc.

Stitching habits went up to quite positive, as I started to work a lot more than I did. Not sure why, but definitely blogging is a thing that keeps one in shape, demanding to be orderly and continuous. Sometimes it’s not “artsy inspiration” but rather self-discipline that helps one move on.

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Wednesday, Aug 23 2006

It’s good to have work but I seemingly forgot how it feels to be tired like hell. Things like that are easily forgotten until they happen again. I sat yesterday night searching for English equivalent of very specific terms. And although I found most of them (and read a dozen pages of laws along the way) and went to bed around 1 am, today I feel like a rag. With gallons of coffee it still doesn’t help, and so the very familiar feeling - want to stitch but can’t. Most probably there will be work in the next few weeks as well, so I can’t promise much progress photos if this happens.

I am also frustrated with wordpress themes. The available ones here. The current one seems to be perhaps the best one possible, although I really can’t stand this right sidebar. But when browsing through the many other themes on the net, 70% of them are also such. Are all this people left-handed, or most of the americans are left-handed? Meh.

I am frustrated because most of the themes offered here are plain, colorless. The good ones that have more detail have fixed width and so a bit larger pictures are protruding outside the text area. The two-column theme I used before breaks in IE, so I had to drop it. At least there should be more themes to chose from. And btw, to just tweak the css doesn’t work, people. A good, user-friendly theme with various options inside itself has many other properties than just css; a wordpress without php scripts is just a sheet of virtual paper, like html file. I’d consider paying but if there’s an option to upload own theme packages.

For example like this? http://www.thestylecontest.com/designs/magic_paper

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and some more progress.. Sunday, Aug 20 2006

Here’s where we are now.

I tried to make a smaller image this time, to show the effects while seen from a distance. The greens are still bothering me a bit, but overally I enjoy it very much.

And I haven’t forgot CM. I worked a bit on the owl and its surroundings.

The “CM issue” is now mainly that it’s very difficult to hold, esp. when you advance to the top of the design. I am basically looking for “inventions” that could help me hold that whole huge piece of fabric and not get my hands tired while working with it. Last thing I did was to roll the remaining part and clip it. It didn’t worked well. Now it is folded and clipped, a bit better but is still heavily pulling to one side and I have to slightly lift this huge piece every time (on every stitch, to be exact). Suppose for people who use the same method of stitching as I do, this issue appears very often.

I wonder if I could use some kind of flexible rod. It’s not only to roll the remaining fabric but also to set it to a size I want - lets say around 15/15 and the rest is hidden. It should be a kind of material that bends easily yet stays if not unrolled. Something plastic. Hm. Any case the “stitching speed” depends almost 80% on not having to lift such weight each time. Minding that if solved I’ll be able to tackle something that is meter/meter large, what so say about some 60/35. Heh.

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Alina’s designs Thursday, Aug 17 2006

Just saw a site of an interesting new Russian designer, Alina Ilyina. She seems rather new to needlework design, but she definitely knows how to work with colors, and although the designs are quite “bright” they’re not “overdone”. Also she seems to have a sensing of how something should be done for cross stitching - a rare thing with many who just skip the notion that the image, after all, will have to be stitched and so every “pixel” should be placed meaningfully.

The album is here , just browse through each category listed.

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Sherlock Holmes related blog and a game Wednesday, Aug 16 2006

Something a bit different this time. I’m generally hunting for Sherlock Holmes related blogs, today found this one:

http://www.astudyinsherlock.net

The theme is really appealing to my taste of colors; the content is also intriguing, though I am looking to read more about the stories themselves - maybe reviews, opinions, etc. Will be following it for some time.

Meanwhile I followed one of the links in there and stumbled upon a very very amusing test -

Mind Your Manners!

The Victorian Period
  Adopt the role of a late 19th century character…
… and try to earn your place in a world where every move is governed by the rules of etiquette.

http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/keys/games/game_0/

I got 461 out of 500. Really, I thought I’ll get less! esp. during the ball scene. I *knew* I’ll screw it totally while in there, but it wasn’t so, to my surprise

I haven’t tried the male test as I have no idea whatsoever about the rules for gentlemen. Suppose I’d reach some medium score by logic and a knowledge of that times but then it’s not fun to pretend to be a male. Speaking about logic, the answers I chose in the female test just seemed so to me - right, obvious…if not “appropriate”  Strangely enough they appeared appropriate indeed.  

I might expand this blog to entries about such things, though I don’t want it to turn exactly into literature-related blog. Victorian-related will just suffice.

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Further on Violin Player Wednesday, Aug 16 2006

 

So far I like how this design is forming. The greens on the cloak look lighter than on the photo, but suppose they will form their effect finely, too.

Once again, the fabric is showing through with the darker colors. Seems this is because of the fabric itself. It started to happen since I began working on evenweave instead of Aida, and it’s my third project with this thing happening. So far nothing wrong is visible on the finished St.George, after he was washed and ironed. I wouldn’t say that the fabric tightened from washing, though. It’s just I don’t see something showing through, at least not in a significant way so to be noticed at instant.

Been thinking that on Aida (for example 16) all this wouldn’t ever happen and all colors would have a 100% covering. But working with Aida is not pleasant. This fabric is stiff and “soundy” - often there’s a strange sound of the needle going through it, like scratching. I don’t mind the empty areas if on Aida because I have many designs that have background. Still, for now I chose to cope with some lesser thread covering than the “average” feeling while stitching something on Aida.

Because yesterday I was on a horribly drunken event party with live music, singing, poetry/intellectual debates and so on, I haven’t slept much and now my head is spinning -so all I can do is cross-stitch

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