Tuesday, Sep 4 2007

Btw, I saw an old TW design that is seemingly not listed on the website. Basket of apples

I’ve never seen it before.

edit: and Camelot Sampler is already in my wish list.

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Tuesday, Jul 24 2007

I really like this one.

 

Seems for me a “want”, besides having quality, has to be quite challenging - at least one step above my current level.  But no matter that, I am still only window-shopping (or as we say here “bathing my eyes in”) blackwork. The main reason is that ornaments style is not very usual for me, as it feels weird to frame and put on wall an ornament or a sampler made only of ornaments. I am used to them as tablecloths, or pillows. But Seba’s designs are good nonetheless.

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Designing methodology Tuesday, Jul 3 2007

I am making some experiments and got stuck - can someone tell me how to “decolorize” an image in Photoshop, but leaving only the contour. Everything else should be white and not grayscaled. For example this type of image, it has a somewhat defined contour.

The reason - I am “theorizing” pattern designing. Meaning I am now experimenting only the theory (method). It is very unlikely that I will start to design (as I don’t really enjoy this), but the methodology is interesting to muse on.

So I came to a conclusion that actual quality designing means one thing - hardware. Not in the sense of computer hardware - but the good old paper, pencils, you know? Cross stitch software for now proves to be quite useless, at the methodology stage 1. It also proves to be useless at all other stages except the last one, when you may want to render your chart in an electronic form - for easier display of symbols, etc. But you also may not and can remain with the hand-drawn chart which you will scan, print, etc.

So far the conclusions I came to are:

1. You need a good deal of graph paper, or paper suitable for charts. Quality and in different sizes

2. You need a good quality printer. This is in case you can’t draw well by hand, but also why should you?

3. You can take a clip art image (like for example the one above), create a “clean” decolorized version of it and print it on the graph/chart paper.

The chart is done. If your paper, the image and the printer are all fine, you will easily see the blocks, curves and borders and easily understand where to stitch. Now for me neither my image and my printer are good, but still after printing on what I have and with what I have, I clearly saw that the image is coming out asolutely suitable.

So the stage one is complete. After that comes the most difficult part, actually the *real* designing stage - assigning colors.  If your original clip art image already has colors, again half of the job is done, you know which colors and even shades go where. The other half is to have the ability to “translate” this into the chart by the use of DMC threads. Here the lecture stops, because this is already stage 2 and it is IMO in one’s personal skill, sense for color and ability to combine and produce the most “right” color effects. And a lot of work in stitching, restitching, adding, taking away, all until you are satisfied and can say “this is it”; and of course the “paperwork” of writing down your colors in the chart.

So these are my musings. Now back to my usual evening dutues.

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Picture time Monday, Jul 2 2007

Here are the photos from the second forum meeting. This time we were more and the others brought a lot of works. 

http://pics.livejournal.com/ternezia/gallery/0003ptpe

We also visited one of our girl’s neighbour. She is an elderly lady who designs classical gobelins, without using a computer. This means the tremendous work with paper, grid, pencils, magnifier - you can imagine; but then you could also imagine that the technical quality of her designs is much higher than those which are mainly done through software. Her projects are remarkable with their similarity to the original paintings - and she says this is her main goal. One of her (IMO) best designs took 2 years of work, as she decided to convert a watercolor painting. It came out perfect.

This one seems to be the most “modern” of her designs. More here http://pics.livejournal.com/ternezia/gallery/0003q60z

She is also (as usual for this generation of needleworkers) adverse to cross-stitch. Coming from the old Wiehler background (although she criticized Wiehler as well), she is using only Anchor threads for her projects. Overally there are more differences than similarities between us but still her works are nice to see to gain experience, and I did learn a couple of new things. Can’t be sure if she also gained experience from the projects we showed her, because after all it is a matter of willingness, and it also proves to be difficult for such people to step out from the “fortresses” they kept building during their whole life. Such visits make me wonder what kind of person *I* will be when I reach her age?

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Rose Tree at 55% Monday, Apr 2 2007

Or at least this is how I would estimate it, of course subjectively. I did some rose backstitching to “exercise” the color change; otherwise backstitching is left to be done last. This design clearly has an Art Nouveau feel.

(clicky of course)

Speaking about this style, I also very much enjoy stained glass-themed designs (and stained glass itself). In the past I experimented with some stained glass images and made them into patterns. Judging by the result it was successful but then yours truly was too lazy to actually stitch this result. (the patterns were too simplistic for my “will actually stitch it” taste). I would do this, if of course made into pattern and a quality one.

On a side note found some cat designs while looking for more Art Nouveau. My cat type is there, although “Octopussy” is not something I would name a thing as. 

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Random acts of design admiration Sunday, Mar 18 2007

Random acts of design admiration (RADA) /self-invented abbreviation just a couple of seconds ago/.

Saw Woodland Faerie design while googling for something. I’ve seen it before of course; it comes that few people have actually stitched it (minding that this conclusion is based only on photos posted on the net). When looking closer at it, every time I feel “satisfaction brought by needlework art“. It’s unlikely that I’ll stitch it soon as it looks quite complicated. Until then (until I begin to post my own WIP photos of it) you can drool over pictures like this.

http://p203.ezboard.com/fteresawentzlerfrm33.showMessage?topicID=237.topic

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Reviews Wednesday, Sep 20 2006

I came home today with some more skeins of thread, fabric for the Castle and new DMC Catalogue 2006. The fabric will be again cream evenweave. They hadn’t anything like what I wrote before except some medium-brown linen that costs a fortune and which color doesn’t fit the design anyway. So I decided to not torture myself and pick my usual type of fabric. It will look good on it for sure. At some later point in time when there are sugar maple fabrics on sale I might try another TW design on them.

For now I am still preparing the blended threads. 33 in total. Well this is my first “big” TW design so now is the time to get surprised by various things

The DMC catalogue however brought turmoil in my mind, heh. I saw a few “big wants”, and usually when I “want” something then there’s a quite a reason I almost fell in love with Britain-related theme, as this theme is generally my “cup of tea”. The designs that nailed my attention at instant have a kind of special scenery feel, something that I recognized and that has a value to me. At least it looked so from the photos.

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Dunmani Designs Sunday, Sep 3 2006

Accidentally found a site with some free patterns, http://www.dunmanidesigns.co.uk . Though most are too simple, there are some knotwork and celtic small motives worth considering. I might pick some blackwork design to work on today, only to chose which one. The inconvenient part is that colors are not given in DMC numbers but merely as color descriptions. But well, one’ll have to be creative. Especially as today I do need something small and nice to work on, as I can’t concentrate much because of hungover

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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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Prices comparrison Wednesday, Jun 7 2006

[mood: frustrated]

So I went today to see the Dimensions catalogue in the LNS and also checked the prices. Saved myself the "surprise" for next Wednesday at the exhibition. Generally large kits all have the same price - conv. in euro ~32 to 35. In our currrency esp. that feels awfully expensive. A pair of really good quality shoes costs the same; but here we're talking after all about a hobby, something that shouldn't really hit the family finances that much. Now that I've returned home I am checking again on ebay.de - well, see the difference:

Sweetheart's Gate - euro 23.00, plus shipping (to Germany): euro 26.00. And this is "sofort kaufen", meaning without bidding.

Gracious Era - euro 22.50

Tuscan View - euro 14.50 (*bump*)

Perfect Patio - euro 22.00

and so on. My "plan B" choice for Wednesday to buy a smaller kit instead would cost me euro 15. Interesting that on ebay the "Gold Honey Jar" costs also the same. But I kinda feel that this price is too much for such small thing.

Anyway, if I someday want to shop from ebay, it will take some amount of nagging of my folks who will have to order it. But that after all is my problem. I don't believe in filling the pockets of distributors who want too much while it can be found for less…even in Sew and So such kits are sold for 25 pounds or something. Our prices seem to be converted to pounds instead of euros, ha.

Idiotic.

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