Mystic Stitch Question

It always amazes me that people will actually *purchase* a computer generated picture. If anyone has a picture they want turned into a pattern I will do it for nothing. Just so long as I dont have to do any thinking.

-- Jim Cripwell. A volante tribe of bards on earth are found,/ who, while the flattering zephyrs round them play,/ on "coignes of vantage" build their nests of clay;/ how quickly from that aery hold unbound,/ dust for oblivion!/ To the solid ground/ of nature trusts the mind that builds for aye. Wordsworth.

Becky - Yes, I am doing one now -- Before Sunrise. Everyone that sees it can't believe how beautiful it is. I was leary too, but thought for $15 I could try one. I now have 4 more waiting their turn. My only complaint is that all the symbols are the alphabet. I like actual symbols not letters. Other than that complaint I am completely happy. Denise

We used to have someone on here who obviously did that - and you had to download the pattern and print it out yourself! It was obvious that no more effort had been put into it than scanning it straight into the pattern making programme.

Personally I prefer the alpha-numeric "symbols" and always use them myself.

Pat P

I had not heard of Mystic prior to your post. However,I popped into my LNS yesterday. amd surprisingly enough she had some of these charts on display. Carolyn said that they were a good quality chart, and not toworry!

Gillian

Hi Becky,

I have actually stitched Foresst Track and after doing 28,000 stitches it came out beutiful. You can check it out on webshots under saultontgirl (album #4) my picture was done with a web cam but it still looks great. I have also seen the one done called solitare (I think thats what it's called). Its of a tree standing behind a wooden fence and it was ispired me to complete one of these projects. I have had alot of compliments on my mystic stitch and had even given it away to my father in law as a christmas gift and he did not realize I had hand stitched all myself, he thought we had bought it lol. Greastest compliment I've got from 10 years of stitching.

Tammy

Becky A wrote:

Yes, but to do it properly, you HAVE to think, and adjust and fiddle with it for days/weeks/months!

As you say, anyone can run a scanned image through and turn it into a chart, but, as we`ve often discussed before, would anyone want to STITCH it?

Out of curiosity I once bought a chart (from someone who used to come on here) and not only did you have to download and print it out yourself, but it was done in the most awful symbols and was a mass of isolated stitches. (AND obviously done from a photo filched from a book/magazine/card or something of that ilk).

Becky - don`t you think that the bottom`s dropped out of cross stitch on Ebay? It all seems to be either the crappy instantaneous computer charts - or the very expensive kits. There aren`t many bidders either.

Pat P

I agree. What I am suggesting is that the person who wants the pattern, does the thinking. When they have got a picture in a form they recon will make a good pattern, they send it to me, and I just produce the pattern according to their instructions.

-- Jim Cripwell. A volante tribe of bards on earth are found,/ who, while the flattering zephyrs round them play,/ on "coignes of vantage" build their nests of clay;/ how quickly from that aery hold unbound,/ dust for oblivion!/ To the solid ground/ of nature trusts the mind that builds for aye. Wordsworth.

Have you tried it? Just interested, as I can`t see it being very satisfactory for either party.

Pat P

Yes, and seem to have been successful twice. First was a lady in Ottawa with a picture of a family pet dog, whose picture she wanted to put on top of some verse. Picture was huge in pixels, and I persuaded her to reduce the picture to the size in pixel/stitches she needed. When I got the picture, I just put it through Pattern Maker, and she was satisfied. She promised to send me a picture of the finished product, but I have not seen it yet. Second a picture "in progress". A lady from rctn asked me if I would create a picture from a pattern. After two guesses on my part, she seems to have understood what was required of her to specify what she wanted, and I hope my latest effort meets her requirement. However, I have had others who simply could not understand that they needed to do the thinking. My satisfaction is completely irrelevant. I merely do as I am asked. If the end product satisfies the stitcher, why should that impact on me? Once I have the picture in my computer, it takes somewhat less than 5 minutes of my time to load Pattern Maker, create the pattern according to instructions, (basically one dimension in stitches and number of colors,) and send it back as an attachment in *.pat format. I prefer it if the picture has the actual number of pixels that will end up as stitches, but this is not essential.

-- Jim Cripwell. A volante tribe of bards on earth are found,/ who, while the flattering zephyrs round them play,/ on "coignes of vantage" build their nests of clay;/ how quickly from that aery hold unbound,/ dust for oblivion!/ To the solid ground/ of nature trusts the mind that builds for aye. Wordsworth.

I agree with you, Pat, that it's almost as if the bottom _has_ dropped out. There are entirely too many morons listing crappy generated charts. And there are also too many stupid people buying them! I just want to scream "Why are you encouraging them?!?!"

Ditto on the expensive kits. I was so frusterated until I found a seller listing the pricier kits at a pretty decent discount. Well...all that glitters is not gold. I'm still dealing with PayPal and waiting for my money back for non-delivery.

Truthfully, I'm glad I haven't spotted anymore kits that I _must_ have. I used to love shopping for kits on eBay, but I'm feeling a bit burned.

And to top all, I ordered a kit from JoAnns Online (at 50% off) to replace the one of the kits I got cheated on. I just got an email telling me they're out of stock.

Go figure. Becky

Sew and So

are very good for price and delivery - particularly their threads. As are Tandem Cottage. I deal with them quite a lot.Pat P

I might give Mystic a try at some point, then. I had a peek at Before Sunrise and boy is it pretty!

Thanks bunches! Becky

That's what was was bothering me...not being able to check them in person. It's really bothersome to have to order everything online, have it sent to my dad (who wouldn't know any better), then wait for him to gather enough for a care package, and then wait about two months for surface parcel delivery. So anytime I buy something new...it's three to five months before I even get to see it.

I miss being able to just pop over to Walmart for a missing skein of floss. Darn that little ear of corn needing a certain shade of yellow.

Guess it'll just have to be purple corn...got plenty of purple ;-) Becky

Thanks for the tip, Pat! I'll bookmark both of those for future use. It'd be so nice to order things that come in days...not weeks!

Not the patient type... Becky

Same as me! Sew and sew seem to send by return post - Tandem sometimes a day or so longer - but they will wind the skeins onto bobbins for you at no extra charge, and they`re just that little bit cheaper. I`m afraid I rarely shop locally now - too expensive, and the last few times I`ve needed to top up they`d run out of just the threads I wanted! I usually have the complete sets of DMC and ANCHOR in my stash if you ever get stuck!

Pat P

Pat P

But just think, Becky what a great experience you are enjoying. I realise you married a Norwegian, but I also married outside of my nationality ( English); I married an American, who I met here in the USA when I was on contract to an American hospital. Of course this is eons ago, but you are learning so much of a different culture.

To add to the mixture, my son is marrying a Japanese lady in Japan. He is 40, and she is 35, so I am happy for both of them. Imagine how in future generations of the families, the blend will show. The world is getting smaller by the minute!! I need to learn a few words of Japanese, just to be couretous. I have always made it a pont to TRY to speak some of the host county's language!!

Gillian

Hopefully off to Japan in the spring!

Bah. Becky, you can use me as your US address. As much as I can fit into a Global Priority Flat Rate envelope (100+ skeins) will go for around $9 postage, and get to you in 2-3 days. And I know what to look for on stitching stuff to ask if you want me to send it back for a refund.

Oh, I love being here in Norway. With the exception of downtown Oslo, every part of it that I've seen has been wonderfully quiet and peaceful. The people are very nice here, and it's a very different culture...but at the same time, very similar. It suits me very well over here, but I've always been much more old-fashioned than my peers.

My mom (and my soon-to-be stepfather) are coming on a quick visit over here at the end of the month. I wonder what they will think of Norway?

It's been a bit of a struggle to learn to speak Norwegian. There are a lot of basic sounds that we don't have in English, and I can't seem to get my mouth to make them. On top of that, there are two major spoken forms of the language and countless dialects of each. I don't want to sound like I'm from the wrong side of the tracks!

Just sometimes there are little niggles. Things being really expensive, not being able to get certain cooking ingredients, no LNS or big-box store, blah blah blah. If I really need or want something, though, I can usually have it shipped. It costs, but it also makes me ask "Do I really need this item?"

I hope your trip to Japan works out! Sounds like a lot of fun. Becky