So what are you working on?

Since most of my stitching time these days is on the go, it is handy not to have a zillion different colors and blended needles and so forth. Makes things much more portable ;-) It's also a lot faster, obviously! But I did get a bit tired of the same color day in and day out and spent some time working on Columbine Designs' Firecracker needleroll (for DD's birthday on July 4th).

Best wishes, Ericka

Totally understandable - just giving you a tease. Between the ring of nearly 30, plus beads, & kreinik for Poseidon, and having bought the 26 (+1 requeiring 2) skeins of overdyed for Scooba Dooba - the idea of just 1 has great appael. I felt "light" with the Drawn Thread Love & wisdom only needing 6 skeins of silk - woohoo.

The Firecracker needleroll - how perfect for someone that gets fireworks on their birthday!

Ellice

Yep, and I love Carmen Wyant's designs. I also got the charts for the days of the week needlerolls (from the "Monday's Child" verse). Needlerolls are addictive, I think.

Best wishes, Ericka

DS is a 4th of July baby, but some how I don't think he'd appreciate it! LOL

Cheryl

So frame it instead of rolling it.

Happy Mothers Day, everyone!

He still wouldn't like it....

C

Welcome back! I glad things are settling down for you.

This has been in my want-to-do list ever since I saw it. I had intended on ordering the thread-pack from them but, by the time I got a round tuit, JCS had been sold to a different company and they had no idea what I was talking about. sigh. If anyone knows where I might be able to get ahold of a thread-pack, would you please let me know?

In the meantime, I have *plenty* of other projects in my to-do list. :)

Joan

*If* they mention it to her, which I hope they do.

I think I would. There's no reason to *promote* shoddy workmanship.

Thank you, ma'am!!!

Joan

Explanation, please?

Joan

On Wed, 9 May 2007 22:20:16 -0400, Meredith defied the laws of time and space to say:

[snip]

Been going to school and hardly have time to do anything else lately, but I did manage to finish a large cross-stitch that I've made for a friend. You know the sort--it starts out as a birthday present... then it's going to be a Christmas present... and then it's going to be a birthday present...

Now I'm working on a small Celtic cross in cross stitch. It's slow going because it uses a lot of metallic thread, which is beautiful but drives me crackers to work with it. So I tend to only work with it for about half an hour at a time before putting it away for the day.

-Bertha

Ah, a thing that many Npers use. It's essentially something like a pincushion - can be many shapes - but filled with weighty items - like pennys, lead shot, dried beans. Many people stitch them - when I was working at the LNS we teach a class for a geometric stitchin' sampler - that'a about a 3.5" square, then finished like a small pillow, and stuffed with some weights, so it stays a bit flexible. The idea is that when you're working on something in a frame like stretcher bars, rather than use a stand to hold, you place the item on the table, with the area actively being stitched off the edge - hanging over so to speak - and the "frame weight" provides the counterweight, or balance to keep the piece from falling off. Some people just use mini-clamps (like used in woodworking) and while others use frameweights. When you use them, you need to not be doing your work with the right side in the ditch, but rather in the more common way with the ground on the top so that nothing but the frame rim is on the table surface.

Small stuffed animal bean bags, or those that have their stuffing removed and replaced with weighting material, are also popular. Frame weights are also used sometimes to help balance a lap stand (I use one on the base of my K's Baby Z) - it keeps the stand from tipping as you're working.

Thing that's nice about using a frame weight - you needn't cart around some cumbersome stand, and this way you can use both hands for stitching. In some NP classes they will list that you bring a frame weight - there are some techniques that just work really well this way. I like the simplicity. And confess to having stuffed some pretty quirky largish beanie-babies for the purpose. Although, I also have a few drafting weights that are really nice, hefty, rounds of bronzey suede. And, of course, I also am known for having pucks in the car at all times, and have used them as frame weights - work great. Just making sure nothing gets dirty.

So, every so often you'll see someone at some ANG seminar offering a class that the project is a "frame weight" . I just think it's one of those ways to teach/learn some stitching techniques, and get something useful - not that there's anything wrong with just another pretty.

Whew - maybe I should put this in Wikipedia.

ellice

Maureen's first ever cross stitch class (around 1976) involved making a pin cushion about 3 inches square. The tutor from the Royal School of Needlework was forever scolding Maureen for licking her silk when threading a needle!

Hi all, I'm new! I resent grad school because it takes away from stitching time. Nonetheless, I just finished The Marriage of Minds by the Drawn Thread to celebrate my wedding last July (pictures are on my blog: theentirelybeautiful.blogspot.com). Now, in obedience to my mother's insistent demands, I have started the Sanctuary, also by the Drawn Thread. She bought me the pattern and Glenshee linen years ago for my birthday, and since my birthday is coming around again, I'm hoping she will be inspired to add to my stash even though it's so big (fills up my hope chest--hubby wonders what exactly I was hoping for!).

Most of my experience is cross stitch and Hardanger but the lovely pictures in the Nordic Needle catalog inspired me to buy several canvas work patterns and I want to do the Amish Trip Around the World quilt pattern by From Nancy's Needle. I have never done canvas work before...anyone have advice?

Also pondering buying and the Stargazer by Mirabilia. I tend to leave that sort of thing to my mom to do for me (I have the June Pearl Fairy framed on my wall) but I think it's so pretty I may have to do it.

It's never too early to think about Christmas ornaments! I have the Just Cross Stitch ornament issues 1998-present with sticky notes all over the place and a growing stash of leftover fabric bits and extra overdyed threads in Christmas-y colors and I am pondering a plan of attack. I am wishing for the discipline to do a few a month.

-Johannah

Welcome. Congrats on the "Marriage of True Minds" piece being done. It's a gorgeous piece. I'm about 1/3 through Love & Wisdom, with Toccata #2 waiting in the wings for that finish. Alos, must confess, I have " the True Love" piece by Indigo Rose in the WIP pile - anniversary gift or later....

like you have some great pieces in the works.>

Use stretcher bars, you might check out some of the info on stitch techniques, stitches on the ANG website - just for some pointers. Especially about using away vs waste knots, and some other hints. Your stitching is gorgeous, surely you'll have fun and success with this.

Enjoyed looking at your blog - so you're leaving G'ville? For Texas? That'll be fun. Good luck with the move, and all that.

Looking forward to some good stitch chat here!

ellice

later....

thanks for the advice. I wish you luck with the Love and Wisdompiece. I have that pattern (to own up to the truth, I think I havealmost all the Drawn Thread's patterns) and I would love to see itdone. Indigo Rose is also a fave, and I did Roses and Pearls. Mymother did From Mother to Daughter for me although she utterlydespised the band of queen stitches. I will put up a pic of that on myblog today because it is amazing, of course.

That reminds me, if anyone knows of a great LNS in or around Abilene, TX I would love to hear about it because I have been completely spoiled by the incredible owner of Brick City in Ocala--she's sorry to see me go because I buy up all her Workbasket patterns and antique reproductions that don't sell.

I forgot to mention my continuing UFO--the Rose Sampler by Butternut Road. It's all done except for the complicated rose border. I did it in high school and ignored my mother's advice to do the border as I went. Ugh. Thinking about it fills me with dread, especially since it would be so gorgeous finished up and framed. Pictures online don't do it justice.

-Johannah

So, frame it without the border. No one but you will know it's missing.

I ordered the silk threads, which are all Mori, from an on-line store, but I can't remember where it was, it was so long ago. They're all Mori threads. These come in skeins of two different lengths and make sure, if you get them, that you get the bigger one, because the smaller one won't be enough. The metallics were all Kreinik and no problem to find. I think the sequins had to be special ordered as well, can't remember, but again, they weren't hard to get and may have been Mill Hill

This piece works up gorgeously, and it had moved very quickly until I got to the stupid satin stich roses, which the directions said to do with a sharp needle, splitting threads, and I was never satisfied and kept ripping them out and wasting expensive thread until I finally just put the thing away for a while. I do want to finish it up this year for a friend who saw it in progress a couple of years ago and said "Ohhhh...I want that". I don't remember anything about a thread pack from JCS, but nothing was that hard to track down

Thanks, Ellice! I can sleep tonight now that I have this new knowledge! :) Seriously, I guess I've only ever np'd in-hand and never knew these things existed.

LOL! Maybe you should!

Joan

So happy to be of some service.... Honestly, it seems too simple to be a great thing, but works like a charm - as long as it's a project on a rigid frame. It's a good thing to do when you have some stitch thing you did, and don't want to frame, don't need another pincushion, pillow, hangie-thingie, etc - make a frameweight. Or if you're an "adult" and can't resist some little stuffed animal mascot - restuff and make it a frame weight.

Yup - that'll be happening any time now.

Ellice - finally off on errands in a minute