Yet MORE Chart Preference Questions

If you have data on how much floss was actually used in doing the stitching, then I would suggest you provide your customers with that information. Most designers I have suggested this to are reluctant, because they feel somehow thay are giving away state secrets; that people will use that information to illegally "kit" their patterns; or something or other. Again, you are giving facts, which are indisputable, so no-one can complain. You are not giving an opinion. If you really are trying to please all of the people all of the time, I feel sorry for you. All you can do is the best you can. I would merely suggest that you give your customers as much encouragement as you can to send you their comments on your patterns. These will be far more important to you than anything I write.

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

That should be " AS in not to be obvious." (Think I need more coffee.)

Please don't. I play Bad Cop in my real life often enough that it's nice to be able to TRY to please people. This is easy in this case, because I *don't* know what would please ME. As I explained before, I've never considered what *I* need a chart to be for my stitching pleasure.

Thank you for your comments. They've been invaluable, and yes, I do plan to invite comments from customers and post those and my answers to the website.

As I've gone along this process of listening to all of you, I've found I would like to make the pattern itself a work of craftsmanship, too. I know there are things I will not think of, and I can evolve and change with each design.

And consider: I'm looking at the very distinct possibility that only 3 people besides me will like what I like, and I'm only designing what I like. I figure I could please 3 people. LOL

"Our model stitchers used the following number of skeins stitching on the recommended fabric. YMMV"

If you really want to spoon-feed them, you can even explain the obvious, "if you are stitching on lower-count fabric, you will need more and if you are stitching on higher-count fabric you will use less. If you are one of those wasteful stitchers who leaves a 6-inch tail at either end of your floss, double the amounts."

You being an engineer, Jim, you can do the calculations for them, that if you are stitching on 14-count fabric you will need twice as much, if you are stitching on 25-count fabric you will need three-quarters, etc.

Indiscreet couching - isn't that how starlets used to get roles?

Seriously - I missed that. But I wonder if sometimes you might want to draw attention to the couching?

C

Just for the record I was a physicist, not an engineer; and I am not particularly enamoured with doing the calculations. Just go to

andeverything is explained. Kathy assumes usage is linear with canvas count,and my results confirm this. So if you are going from 28 to 32 count, (or14 to 16 count), then you will use less floss by 28 divided by 32, or 0.875.As to differences between stitchers, the only way I know to quantify thisis for people to measure how many stitches they can get per skein of floss.--Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

F.James Cripwell said

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

Is there another url, or does one have to be a member/subscriber to users.rcn.com to get to the website with the floss estimator?

-- Carey

Not that I am aware of. Let me reproduce what Kathy says.

you folks who like to know the details, here is how the chart wasderived. As you will see, there was a fair amount of approximating goingon. A skein of floss is approximately 8-1/2 yards long. Assume most people stitch with an 18" length of floss. This gives 17 segments of 18" each per skein. Most of the time, people stitch with more than one strand. There are 6 strands of floss per skein. So 6/strands_used is the number of pieces per segment. Allow 3" per 18" length for securing the beginning and ending, and for general waste. This gives 15" of usable thread per 18" piece. Now, how many inches of floss does each X take? Using the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate the length of each half stitch on 14 count fabric, and allowing for the vertical lengths on the back, and allowing a little for slop, we get 6/count (where count is the number of stitches per inch). Remember, I said there was a fair amount of approximating going on. So the final equation is: stitches_per_skein = 17 * (15 / (6/count)) * (6/strands_used) I used this equation in a perl script to produce the chart above.

HTH.

-- Jim Cripwell. From Canada. Land of the Key Bird. This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter, shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

Try this...

Thanks very much, James.

-- Carey

Thank you, Addie. I was able to get there with the URL you gave. Regards, Carey

snip

May just be my computer, but I'm getting this message.: The page cannot be found The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Maureen In Vancouver, B.C.

Try this:

-- Jenn Ridley : snipped-for-privacy@chartermi.net WIP: Morning Glory, Rose Trio, Emperor's Coat II, Carousel Most recently Finished: Water Lilies, Be Mine, Honey I Shrunk the Heart Stitching log:

YES! :)))))))) Thanks so much.

Maureen In Vancouver, B.C.

YES! :)))))))) Thanks so much.

Maureen In Vancouver, B.C.

You have just made two very big assumptions. First of all that all humans (and even cross stitcher's) are comfortable enough with numbers and calculations to preform them themselves. I right now know of two people who would not be able to do that easily. One of which is a cross stitcher. The second is that everyone has the same access to the information you listed. Not everyone has net access, or participates in this group to know about these excellent resources. Of course, even if you are comfortable with numbers/calculations and have net access and know about these tools, they are still of real no assistance when a I'm standing in a LNS (which for me is really anywhere for 3-5 1/2 hours away from where I live, the local shop is a yarn store that will special order for me) with a pattern that I LOVE and MUST START NOW that calls for material you cannot get easily locally, a designer who at least gives you ball park figures is helpful. I spend some of my time at work training others and I know that assumptions of knowledge and/or tools are often wrong and only cause more confusion.

Rachel