Enemy of Entropy

SBQ: Blended Threads

6 May 2008, 10:37 am. Comments Off. Filed under Needlework, SBQ.

And another Stitch­ing Blog­ger Question:

How do you han­dle blended threads? Do you kit the blends up before you
start a piece, or do you grab what col­ors you need and blend when the
need arises? If you kit up the blends before­hand, how do you store
them? Do you have another option for blends to share?

I can’t remem­ber the last time I did a piece that used blended threads. Obvi­ously, I haven’t got­ten around to stitch­ing any­thing by Teresa Went­zler ;-)

When I’ve had to use them, I just blend them as the need arises. I keep most of my threads (DMC, def­i­nitely) on plas­tic bob­bins, so when I start a project I gather all the col­ors required and put them on a metal ring. As I cut a length, I wind what­ever I didn’t use back on the bob­bin for later use, to avoid waste.

SBQ: Most Complicated Piece?

5 May 2008, 11:51 pm. 2 Comments. Filed under Needlework, SBQ.

I’m behind on the Stitch­ing Blo­qqer Ques­tions, so I’ll do them for the next few days.

What is the most com­pli­cated piece you’ve ever completed?

I’m try­ing to fig­ure out how to judge how com­pli­cated some­one else would judge a piece to be. Size? Dif­fer­ent types of stitches? Embellishments?

Elemental CosmosFor sheer cussed­ness, though it was worth it, I’d have to say that the Ele­men­tal Cos­mos piece designed by Witches Stitches prob­a­bly takes the cake. It didn’t use blended nee­dles or spe­cial fibers or stitches, but there were lots of lit­tle sec­tions of “three stitches this color, four of that color, one stitch of another” and so on. I had to do a lot of frog­ging, too, before I fig­ured out some of the tricks of work­ing on black fab­ric. It’s beau­ti­ful, though!

Mélange from Cal­ico Cross­roads was the first piece I did that really used a lot of dif­fer­ent stitches. I enjoyed it greatly.

Melange

SBQ: Stitching weaknesses?

26 February 2008, 9:42 pm. 5 Comments. Filed under Needlework, SBQ.

What is your cross stitch weak­ness? (i.e., What do you have to have when you see it, even if you are sup­posed to be on the Wagon?)

I’m sup­posed to go telling my weak­nesses, in public?

Well, I guess I’ve already exposed them, con­sid­er­ing the lists on my site. I adore “dif­fer­ent” pat­terns. If it jumps out from all the cutesy crap, I want it. Celtic knot­work is another one. I haven’t seen too many good pagan designs, so when I do, I pay atten­tion.
Read on…

SBQ: Starting Over?

14 February 2008, 10:17 pm. 1 Comment. Filed under Needlework.

The Stitch­ing Blog­gers’ Ques­tion of the Week is:

Do you have any projects that you have scrapped and started over? What made you start over from scratch?

Celtic Cross designed by Deb Davis for Y-Knot Designs
I can only remem­ber one, and I restarted it at least twice, maybe three times. It was the Celtic Cross designed by Deb Davis for Y-​​Knot Designs. I think I tried start­ing with one of the cor­ners, but kept find­ing myself off a bit, so I frogged every­thing and started from the mid­dle, as I usu­ally do. I still kept get­ting off by just a thread here or there, so I do think I frogged all that again, then started from the cen­ter again but work­ing in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, but I think it was the last piece I did on linen instead of evenweave.

SBQ: Other crafts?

6 February 2008, 11:56 pm. 4 Comments. Filed under Needlework.

Melange by Calico Crossroads
This weekend’s Stitch­ing Blog­gers Ques­tion:

Are there other crafts that you have tried and aban­doned? Why do you like stitch­ing better?

Short ver­sion: Because it’s one of the few visually-​​beautiful things I’ve ever been good at.
Read on…

 

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