Various Thursday, Aug 30 2007

 

1. Indeed it looks way better in real life. I spent some time yesterday just standing and staring at it. The reference photo is IMO good enough to give a hint that they will look really good when stitched. But I also see that too few people have actually stitched them, which is a miss. I highly recommend them, they all will look really stunning.

2. Happy Beefday to me. So it happens for a couple of years already that for one reason or another I have to celebrate another day, mostly during the weekend. Dull.

3. Regarding b-day presents and ordering online, I am annoyed at a certain company. Wanting to save some money from price and shipping, I decided to order the Best of TW fantasy collection II book from ABC Stitch Therapy. Book 20 dollars, shipping 10 dollars, looks fine so far. I placed the order on August 21-st, received a confirmation email, and since then I haven’t heard from them. They write in the email “We will be sending you a shipping notification email when your order is ready to ship.” But after one week has passed I emailed their orders department about the status of my order. (”You may inquire about your order’s status at any time by emailing us at  orders@abcstitch.com) No reply. Now *this* is already insolent. I’ve dealt with similar US companies on my previous job, so I know this type of behavior, and in such cases we had to pick up the phone, call them and make them do their job. So if I was there I’d call them, but now I have to just wait and see what will happen. They haven’t charged my credit card, and overally it looks like they’ve disappeared from the face of the earth. Suppose some of you might have dealt with them too, and even if everything went well with you, here so far it is just not showing well about them. So no matter if they ship it in the end or reply, I won’t be ordering from them again. This is a neglectful attitude to customers.

Even if we mind a possibility that my email was not received for some reason, the way I understand business, is that the firm itself is responsible to notify the customer in the moment there is any kind of delay, and also initially inform him of a possible time-period when he can expect his order to be processed. I have witnessed a good business approach, when I ordered from Sew and So a couple of years ago, they sent me a confirmation and on the next day emailed me again, saying that they don’t have the item currently in stock and I will have to wait for a few days, for which they apologize. After a few days (two in fact) they emailed again saying that they already received it in stock, apologized (again) for the delay and added that the item was already shipped. I also have good impressions from Patterns Online, I emailed them with some payment related questions and received a very detailed reply on the same day.

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Thursday, Jul 19 2007

Today’s SBQ was suggested by Ish (http://ishsuth. wordpress. com) and
is:

Which project (finished or in progress) are you most proud of?
Explain why.

The permalink to this post is:
http://blog. blondelibrarian. net/archives/ 2007/07/sbq- pride-and- joy/

Happy Stitching!

Renée

Well I am proud of more than one, and since it’s a topic for braggin’ I’ll list all three of them.

1. I am proud of The Castle because it was my first large TW, and because of the easiness I completed it with.

2. I am proud of Rose Tree in Bloom because of the way it looks (mean: awesome) and also of the frame I chose for it.

3. Finally I am proud of Corte Medieval because of all the signs that soon it will reach 50% completion, and that means it will also be finished. When finished I think it will remain the project I’ll be most proud of.
 

But overally the best answer to this question is “Let the works speak for themselves and show why.”

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Wednesday, Jul 4 2007

Today’s SBQ is:

Do you consider yourself a “floss miser?”

The permalink to this post is:
http://blog. blondelibrarian. net/archives/ 2007/07/one- thousand/

Happy Stitching!

Renйe

I’m not sure I understand this question completely, but then I checked the author’s answer and I think I am getting the meaning.

I am not a “floss miser” in any way - because there were times when I had NO money to buy any DMC, and there were times when there wasn’t ANY DMC to buy. There were long years when I used floss with so poor quality that the colors faded off after 6 months. All other people also used this floss of course and embroireded huge projects, which were becoming almost unrecognizable after, say, 10 years. And so on and so forth. 

So I cut the thread when I feel it is already too short to be comfortable with it, and I am starting a new thread. I often throw away thread remainders, no matter that it might be possible to make a good few rows with them. I often buy more than I need at the moment, and being absent-minded often mistake the color number I need and buy another, then go back, etc. I buy expensive DMC cardboard bobbins, no matter that they waste pretty fast, and yet are very comfortable to use when new.

The logic: I had it enough. I am in a fit for work age and condition, financially well, and so can afford to enjoy my hobby without any stoppers or things to keep on the back of my mind. This might not last forever and someday I might start to save from threads by stitching to the last millimeter. But if it depends on me I’d do the necessary to be a (very) rich old lady, not poor one. When one has seen the other end, the mindset about things even like floss cutting is different.

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Monday, Jun 25 2007

Not dead yet, but drinking huge amounts of water, melting under 35C and working on CM. The last holds enough reason to keep silent and not blog. CM progress is a slow thing, especially when there are totally endless carpet areas to stitch. But it is B’s influence, she nagged for so long that I must “focus on it”, that I finally did. (You just can’t oppose a Scorpio).However I seem to have found out a way to speed up the process, or at least reduce the amount of squeezing and folding the fabric in my hand. I will work all the lower pages from left to right and then turn the project upside down and work the upper pages as if they were lower. Will see.
Another meeting is planned somewhere for this or the next weekend. Also I might, maybe, perhaps, be teaching one lady to work TW designs. The thought really warms me; although I did not became a Dark Master (neither I really wanted) I might become a Craft master (understand: acting teacher in the subject). Much more worth it!…And I thought I have nothing new to blog about. Heh. 

4 Responses »

 

Thursday, Jun 7 2007

Today’s SBQ was suggested by Ish (http://ishsuth. wordpress. com/) and is:

What has been your most challenging project and why?

The permalink to this post is:
http://blog. blondelibrarian. net/archives/ 2007/06/sbq- challenging- projects/

Happy Stitching!

Renйe

Let me think…if anything has a hardanger in it, consider that I’ll run away terrified, but none of my projects had any by now, so the challenging standard will have to be measured differently.

/checks her “Finished projects” gallery

This boy was tough. It was my first project done with DMC (the good ol’ times when DMC was luxury where I live); and although the threads issue was solved, I did it on Aida 18. It was a torture, this design had a lot of tiny detail. But no other type of fabric in shops…, I mean no other “western” product than this, this was rare as well. There were times indeed. So I battled my way with all the details, and also there was gold blending filament. “Gold” meant gold metallic thread, so stiff that I could barely pull it through the fabric. And then people started to say “what is this?” as they’ve never seen such kind of embroidery (cross stitch was used for quite different type of designs). The reaction this Dragon was provoking was mostly that of bewilderment, but I knew well which is which and was amused at the differences in POVs and cultural trends/development levels.  

I’ve not suspected that this times will be over so soon, actually. People love to follow examples, and although me alone was not enough to make most people change their POV about cross stitched designs, myself plus two other ladies, plus a year and something of openly showing our preferences and doing great stuff, were influential enough.

3 Responses »

 

The miracle of make-up Monday, Apr 23 2007

Off-topic, but seeing this was just shocking.

Now I know that I don’t need to be ever concerned about how I look. Why should I, when even a horrible hag can be turned into you’ll see what, only for a couple of hours? OMG.

http://fishki.net/comment.php?id=17534

So friends, looks are meant to be deceiving.

2 Responses »

 

SBQ Thursday, Apr 5 2007

Now this is a really good question.

Today’s SBQ was suggested by Heather
(http://theneedlesbe witchingeye. blogspot. com/) and is:

How do you decide which stitching blogs are worth repeat and/or
regular viewings? Are there certain things you look for in particular?
Are there things you wish there were more of? Less of? Is your blog a
good example of what you like to read?

The permalink to this post is:
http://blondelibrarian.net/stitching/archives/202007/04/sbq-/blog-criteria/

One of the main reasons to make me want to read a blog and return to it often would be “designs style”. Don’t want to repeat myself and most of the readers already know my preferences. But it wouldn’t be only the designs, like seeing only WIP photos of one particular huge project. (yours truly is guilty of such entries). The most - most - to make a blog attractive to me is the crafter’s personal attitude to what she/he does. ‘course not all people can write eloquently (this is also a matter to keep in mind), but still it is more or less seen whether the person is putting their emotions into it, “putting himself into it”, or is rather indifferent and may be blogging/stitching because it’s cool , because others are doing it or to merely pass time…or is grasping only for the surface. But this is just an assumption. No matter what exactly is the situation, some blogs just have a “cold” or empty feel to them; at least I have difficulty to reach the person behind the words. So in short I am looking to “become involved as a reader in the story told by the blog author”. It is actually not so difficult to achieve as there are stitching blogs that do it.

My blog (at least recently) is not a good example of this. I am not making efforts to write in a way I’d be interested to read, and not adding more diverse content to the blog. The reason is just as with my current status of needleworking, I have no time to devote to focusing on it as I would like to. Or maybe it’s not the time issue but the “freedom of mind”. I am occupied with too much stuff these months. But maybe someday I will be able to make this blog more interesting, as also allow myself to delve deeper into this craft and art, as it deserves.

4 Responses »

 

SBQ Friday, Mar 16 2007

Today’s SBQ was suggested Danielle (http://scopist. blogspot. com/) and is:

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

The permalink to this post is:
http://blondelibrar ian.net/stitchin g/archives/ 2007/03/sbq- shopping- spree/

My, what a question! This is quite of money over here, what to say to spend everything of it on stitching.  Anyway, lets imagine…

1. A lap frame, which will probably solve my “huge project handling” issue

2. Charts - in particular as many TW charts from my want list as possible. Considering that they’re really many, think that we already spent at least half of the money. Fabric for each of them. Some Janlynn kits or Stoney Creek magazines if there’s space left.

3. Threads drawer. Tall, wooden and most probably custom ordered.  I’m not buying threads because I buy them only when I need them for a particular project.

I think that’s it…Can’t estimate so generally but seems that this $500 can go pretty easily, no matter how high is their currency value. But the conclusion: I always know what I want.

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/waves Sunday, Jan 7 2007

I am here but not stitching much. We became heaped in work just after the holidays had passed and my free time is again very limited. But the new thing is that I prefer to read in the evenings and since I am reading spirituality materials, all hobbies will have to wait for when I have some more of free time.

I’ve made some progress on CM during the holidays, just need to scan it. Actually I hoped for even more progress before posting the update about it but since then my stitching is not the first priority so more progress is not coming Haven’t touched Tuscan View - looks like it is needing some special conditions like “have nothing to do all day and have no problems to occupy your mind”.  As seen, those conditions are not met yet. We (me and my husband, that is) are considering some short holiday in the mountains in a few months time, maybe I’ll take it as my travel project then. 

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Friday, Nov 17 2006

Today’s SBQ is:

Do you stitch Christmas ornaments? If so, how many do you stitch each year and for whom? If not, why not?

Short answer: no. Long answer: I don’t much celebrate Christmas, though it’s a nice time to put some decoration here and there and prepare a full table of food To stitch Christmas ornaments makes no sense for me since there are so many “non-stitched” ornaments for sale and even if they break/get dirty/lost one wouldn’t mind after that.  I do have a special attitude to stitched works and they’re not something that can be used as ordinary household item. TW has Byzantine ornaments that I might someday stitch but wouldn’t put them on a Christmas tree.

Otherwise I am not adverse to Christmas theme, except that I don’t like stitching Santa or whatever he’s called in various countries. A jouful winter landscape, something with kids on sleigh or birds feeding is a nice thing.

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