SBQ: Balance?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Needlework
The Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week (really last week) is:
That isn’t really an issue for me, as I haven’t been stitching lately. I really need to go buy some floss so I can get past a stumbling block on my most active current project.
Other than that, the only times I’ve ever really stitched have been when I didn’t “need” to do something else, and usually when I’ve been multitasking. It’s rare that I’m not gaming or otherwise engaged while stitching.
SBQ: Stitching Publications
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Needlework, SBQ
The Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week:
Do you currently subscribe to any stitching publications or have you in the past? (Either in print or online) If so, which ones?
I don’t subscribe to any at the moment, and I rarely buy them off the rack. I have hundreds of them in my stash, and I keep meaning to go through and just keep the designs I’m still planning to stitch, but I never get around to doing it! I stopped buying them because I realized that I haven’t ever stitched one single pattern in any of those hundreds of magazines.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: cross stitch, magazines, Needlework, patterns, SBQ, Stitching, subscriptions
School Happy
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Education, Geekery, Writing
I finally got the grades from the first technical writing assignment I turned in last week, and the peer reviews I did on two of my classmates’ rough drafts. I got full points for all of them!
I was worried about one of the peer reviews, because the person chose to do a set of instructions for starting to cross-stitch. I know too much about that topic to evaluate it well from a beginner’s point of view, and that was the intended audience. I actually approached the professor with some questions, and wondered if I should swap reviews with someone new to stitching. Happily, the professor said I provided a balanced review that reflected my experiences as a former beginner and currently experienced stitcher, and that I was respectful throughout. I was trying very, very hard to avoid any hint of condescension, and it appears that it worked!
My topic was “Creating Your First Podcast,” and that received full points, too. It had to be done with a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level less than 8th grade, which was not easy. I got it down to 7th grade, and couldn’t go any lower. The professor said that was due to the technical terms I had to use, and was perfectly acceptable.
Tags: grades, podcasting, school, Stitching, technical writing
SBQ: What do you do with completed patterns?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Blogging, Needlework, SBQ
This week’s question is the first of some recycled questions. It was first asked back in 2005, and I don’t think I even knew about SBQ then, so I doubt that I’ve answered it before.
After you stitch a pattern or kit, what do you do with it?
I’ve done so few kits that they hardly count. I think I have just about every pattern I’ve ever stitch, though. I wish I had photos of all the items I’ve stitched from those patterns! I guess hanging on to the pattern is a memoir, of sorts, as I’m very unlikely to stitch most things more than once.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beauty, brother-in-law, Design, framing, kits, patterns, projects, Stitching
SBQ: Starting Over?
Posted by Cyn | 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?
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.
Tags: Celtic Cross, Deb Davis, Needlework, SBQ, Stitching, Y-Knot Designs
Still Thinging; Date Night
Posted by Cyn | Filed under College, Critters, Family, Fun, Geekery, Health, Home, Needlework, Podcast, Writing
I am, in fact, still keeping up with Thing-a-Day! I need to go post over there, though. I do wish I could automatically cross-post, but if wishes were fishes and all that.
I stitched tonight while Sam and I gamed. I also wrote for a while, earlier. Sam and I have recently begun participating in a forum that does a great job of encouraging introspection, and being a safe place in which to express oneself. It’s a powerful thing, and I’m in awe of the people who created and run it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: date, Gaming, Katie, Kioshi, Needlework, podcasting, Sam, Shelley, sick, Stitching, Thing-a-Day, Veronica Mars
SBQ: Other crafts?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Needlework
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 the rest of this entry »
Tags: Atlanta, beading, bow tying, candlewicking, chicken scratch, crafts, creativity, crocheting, decorating, Design, floss, knitting, meditation, Mercedes, metal, Michelle, paint-by-numbers, SBQ, Stitching, tin punch, Wade
Happy Car Day!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Health, Needlework, Reading, RPGs
Well, that’s what it felt like. Poor Sam had to take time off from work, because it was Pain Doc Day. The pain doctor is off in the wilds of Cobb County, because that’s where we lived when I started seeing a pain doctor, and it’s darn near impossible to get a reference to a new one (much less trust that a new one will, in fact, keep writing prescriptions for the meds that actually work). Then we headed to Big Warehouse Store to get the RXs filled, and also hit the bank and the post office because they’re just so much fun! And then it was time to go see the friendly therapist lady.
Happily, we were able to game off and on during the day, which made the whole business far more pleasant than it would have been otherwise. And we picked up a great big bag of fat-lady clothes from a nice freecycler! Some of them are so cool the girl is eying them covetously, so I need to be sure they go to my room and don’t wander off to hers.
While we were gone, though, a sweet fairy girl washed our quilt and comforter! Sam put fresh sheets on the bed, so I’ll be crawling into a nice, clean bed next to a freshly-showered, cuddly man soon. That part of the day, I’m looking forward to!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bank, Big Warehouse Store, Chinese New Year, Cobb County, doctors, Dragon Dreams, Jennifer Aikman-Smith, Kim Harrison, library, Lynsay Sands, Marjorie M. Liu, Rachel Morgan, Reading, Rudolph, Sam, Sarah Monette, Stitching, thanksgiving, Thing-a-Day, Vicki Pettersson, Winter Solstice
Thing-A-Day 1!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Needlework
If there’s a way to auto-cross-post relevant entries from here to Thing-A-Day, I haven’t figured it out. Doing it manually feels inelegant.
I don’t have a photo to post, but I got out the drawing tablet for the first time in an embarrassingly long time, and worked on a cross-stitch design. It split into two designs, somehow, but I’m hoping to post pics tomorrow. I discovered that PatternMaker isn’t installed on this machine, so I’ve made graphics that have to be translated into graphed designs.
I feel that I’m really in the “getting organized†stage, which I should have done last week. But the tablet is attached now, and I know where my stitching bag is. I’ll find out in the morning just what my daughter did with my colored pencils and such, and locate the PatternMaker install CD. And the camera, that would help. Yep.
It did feel great to have time on my schedule devoted to “being creative†and nothing else!
Tags: coloring, creativity, PatternMaker, Stitching, Thing-a-Day, Writing
Happy Friday!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Health, Home
The girl is gone this weekend. I’m starting to feel like the house is just a place where she keeps her stuff and does her laundry! I suppose that’s normal for any parent of an older teen, and good practice for when she goes off to college. It doesn’t mean that i have to like it, though!
Sam has been Mr. Podcasty tonight, recording a roundtable discussion for someone else’s show, then recording a new Square One episode with Bill Walton. I’m tempted to do a Fibrant Living again. It’s certainly been long enough!
I have hopes of rearranging the living room to some extent tomorrow, to make the house more inviting for guests and make it easier to play the piano. I’m really tempted to reclaim the back bedroom as “office space,” but Sam will kill me if I ask him to move the big sofa again. I just have this feeling that as long as our computers are out here in the public area, we aren’t going to be very successful at keeping the public areas uncluttered. I’d need a desk to move my computer in there, though, or we’d need another table.
We really, really need to improve the lighting in the living room. One of the torchiere lamps has a broken switch, and we don’t really have any task lighting at all. I’d much prefer the sort of lamps that have those adjustable heads, so some point up and another points down at whatever you’re reading or stitching.
Yep, I’m totally random tonight. This is Cyn on breakthrough meds. Whee!
Tags: Bill Walton, clutter, furniture, homemaking, lamps, lighting, Podcasty, Reading, Stitching