Jeane Love’s angel and the next project Tuesday, Sep 11 2007

Ето върху какво работих през последните дни:

Teresa Wentzler’s Jeane Love’s angel

 

Какво ми хареса в този модел:  Оформяше се много по-ярък и симпатичен, отколкото на примерните снимки. Хареса ми финото преливане на цветовете върху ръкавите.

Не ми хареса: перата върху крилете са малко в повече, което прави крилете да заемат повече място в цялостната картина. Крилете изглеждат повече пухкави отколкото елегантни.

Ангелите са безполови, но често срещана практика е да се рисуват ангели-мъже, жени, деца, та даже и животни, така че в този случай не бих критикувала дизайнера на този модел. 

Моят следващ проект ще бъде Castle Sampler. Доста голям и величествен дизайн; и има около 47 смесени цвята. Подготовката на тези цветове обикновено ми отнема повече от една вечер.

***

This is what I’ve been spending my crafting time on.

The design was not impressing me initially, but I have someone whom I promised a stitched b-day present. She is very religious and I decided it had to be with a religious theme. I could find no better option than this design; actually when I remembered about it, it instantly felt like best fitting for the occasion.

What I liked: It was gradually coming out much nicer than on any photos. I loved the smooth color transition effect on her sleeves. Also, the frame colors do not contrast so unpleasantly as they do on most reference photos.
I think that the design also fits well for the dedication.

Didn’t liked: The amount of feathers on wings is a bit too much, so her wings take too much space on the picture. The wings look rather furry than elegant.

*Angels are gender-less, but it’s a common practice to make distinctly female, male, kids and even animal angels, so I wouldn’t really judge the designer for this.

My next project will be medium (for me, having the ~40×60 CM means this one falls under medium category). I wanted to do it since long time, and now the time has come - Castle Sampler. I am very curious how it will turn out, and sure there will be lots of progress photos. For a start, it has around 47 blended colors. I already started to prepare them, but usually this takes more than one evening.

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Finished knotwork bookmark F Monday, Sep 3 2007

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Stoney Creek Carrots mini-sampler Wednesday, Aug 22 2007

Stoney Creek seed packet sampler, Carrots.

Това малко нещо е завършено днес и е от серия на Stoney Creek “Towels for Home and Garden“. Има 6 модела от този тип.

От много време насам не бях шила на аида 18 (всъщност най-сполучлива е аида 16, но аз имам цял топ 18 така че трябва да бъде използван). Оказа се че да се шие на аида не е чак толкова неприятно колкото ми се струваше след като изцяло минах на evenweave. Причината да шия тази серия на аида е в това, че моят evenweave е с твърде голям каунт (25) и тъмните цветове прозират. А в серията има доста черно и други тъмни цветове.

Някой ден ще направя и останалите пет парчета, но засега ме чака Corte Medieval - на този етап е на около 45%.

***

Hey, I am baack With a very small finish, as you can see and read from title and description. This is intended for my kitchen and will be framed along with the other 5 mini-samplers from the same serie, when they’re completed. I’ve stitched it on Aida 18 because this is what I have (should better have 16); and discovered that I hate it moderatedly, meaning “not that bad, seen worse.” But on Aida such small designs come out much better looking.

Now I am planning to finish work on CM and enjoy more progress.

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Fabric experiments Saturday, Jul 7 2007

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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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Cuadros 38 Saturday, Jun 30 2007

Seems I was wrong thinking that there are no new Artime Cuadros issues; at least they put this one also in the “News” section of the site. (but is it something new indeed?, what if the site was last updated god knows when?)

I’ve never bought from this site and I didn’t knew this is the actual publisher’s site. (Not the designer’s site though).

Can’t say I see something that captures me in this issue, but after all this is only the cover and they don’t show all the rest of the designs inside. The more unpleasant thing is the shipping cost, 11 euro and something for one magazine and then another 4 euro and something if there are two magazines, which makes 9 euro (magazines cost) plus 15 euro shipping. (not mentioning my local customs taxes). Ugly, isn’t it. But in contrast to TW books these cannot be ordered from the States. But I value this magazine so much that I am willing to pay even such shipping costs.

…

Maybe.

…

Any case whatever is done will be done after a month or so.

Btw, the meeting took place, but my camera died shamelessly. I *hope* it did not do so forever, as now it is taking photos again after I changed the batteries. (the previous ones were also brand new though). So other girls will upload their photos and then I will also post them here.

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And another addition to the Wall Saturday, Jun 2 2007

Rose Tree framed

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Tapestry passion Thursday, May 31 2007

I haven’t mentioned before that I am very passionate about medieval tapestries (or at least huge designs with rich detail and medieval content). I dream of stitching several such tapestries. Provided of course there are good quality charts, done for cross stitch - I am not much inclined to start using another technique.

Or if none, to make such a chart and work on it would be a task worth one’s time and energy.

More tapestries at http://www.medievalwalltapestry.com/meta.html

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The Fortunate Traveller Tuesday, May 29 2007

As a follow-up from my latest entry “which TW will be next”, I am pondering on whether to start The Fortunate Traveller (and I prefer the double l, chiefly British).

 

But as discussion has already started in previous comments thread, I have issues with:

1. the outer border

2. the text

1. The outer border can be omitted, this is simple.

2. The text however is something that makes me wonder. I am not sure I understand its logic. The dragon says: “I pray Sir, please don’t eat me, I’m charged to guard this land.” and then the next paragraph: “I’ll join you!” cried the dragon. And before the night was through, both man and mightly dragon discovered friendship true.

He is charged to guard the land but suddenly he joins the traveller.  For what reason? There is an inconsistency feel; for my way of thinking there definitely is such. Unless I am missing something in the poem’s overal meaning.

So I am considering taking out the text as well. Deb mentions to modify the text. This is a great idea, but I’ve never done it, I am not so skilled in such kind of alterations, and no matter that I do have a pretty good poem related to warriors, armies, battles, etc, it will not fit exactly to this picture. 

So lets see, how would this design feel without the text in general?

Looks fine to me, rich enough in detail even without the outer border. One thing remains though - the title at the top. A bit of black humour here - without the happy pinky end it is rather the “fortunate“ traveller who suddenly sees the dragon. Hehe 

For the weak-hearted the design might be modified further into this:

Both contain own logics. I am undecided which of the two I’d do (in case I will omit the text, which is very likely). Any thoughts?

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Rose Tree finished Sunday, May 27 2007

Here it comes, fresh from the washing and ironing. I really had great pleasure working on it!

I also altered the backstitch colors, to make the whole picture expose more vividly.

Original instructions:

All gold: 3862

All brown: 839

All green: 3362

All pink/mauve: 3740

Mine:

All gold and brown: 839 

All green: 3345

All pink/mauve: 550

It will be framed in a few days time. Meanwhile I remain with Needle Treasures project (an update on it is incoming). Regarding my next TW, I am pretty much undecided. Would like something similar to Rose Tree again…but it seems to be a quite unique design. The other two wool cross designs (Fruit and Flower Quartets) have a different feel. And I became a bit tired of repetitive motifs, which are quite a lot in Rose Tree.

Still I have to ponder on my next TW, no matter that I might take a break with some other designs for a while.  Which of the following will be next?

“Flower Quartet”

“The Fortunate Traveller”

“Princess and the Dragon”

a few celtic knot bookmarks

or from the Fantasy Collection book

“Castle Sampler”

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