Counted cross stitch is and isn’t like paint by numbers. I always lost heart when it came time to do all the highlighting. Man, talk about tedious.
And that is going to be stunning, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
I have the knitting equivalent of writers block. I decided to work through my stash (and I have an extensive amount of stash) or finish unfinshed things this year - instead of just buying new yarn. (With the exception of a baby something that one of my friend’s almost-here baby will get).
And instead of doing that, I’m doing…nothing. I’ve got to figure out a way to use this stuff up. Or give it away. Or something.
I bead embroider also! I just can’t figure how to get photos out of my phone
Get on Ravelry, for serious. That’ll cure it. Failing that, you can de-stash on there by selling or giving it away.
Done. Finished.
I can only hope that the next one is less wrinkly. I had to borrow my mum’s sewing machine for the final stages as mine spat the dummy and refused to work properly. The machine that sulked is 16 years old. The one that worked is 45 years old. Go figure.
My first quilt.
Whee.
That quilt looks awesome, maggenpye!
I haven’t done anything crafty for ages but this thread inspired me, so I popped down to HobbyCraft last night and picked up a cross-stich project! I’m going away on a long weekend at the end of this week so am hoping to get it done then!
Thanks. Cross-stitch is something I have to admire from afar, I’ve never completed anything more than ‘My first bunny’ level.
I’ve come off a long break from crafts this year. Good to finish a few things. I’m doing the peggy square blanket mainly to finish up a couple of shopping bags of wool - all half balls or unravelled work.
I was going to put up a photo of the sleeveless tunic I did last week, but it really shows that it was knitted in two days! I just needed something different to concentrate on while I got my head around the finishing process on the quilt. I may try it again in a different wool to see if it works better.
That’ll have to wait until after the shawl I’ve promised a friend. I suggested the pattern and told her to source an alternate wool (it’s an old 70’s pattern and they don’t make the recommended very fine wool anymore).
It wasn’t till after she’d fallen in love with the pattern that I read the first line; cast on 395 stitches…
oops.
Made another dress last night. Pretty much the same as the others, but purple, and with a drawstring around the underbust instead of elastic. I’ll get pics up later.
Oh, the thrill of starting a brand new project! Those first dozen stitches are the best.
I signed up. I should be getting my invitation soon.
here is an anklet thing Photo_061008_001 | ankle bracelet | Conurept | Flickr
Wow! That’s lovely. Hexagons in your first quilt! You’re very brave.
I’m quite a good crocheter–done it for years now–and right now I’m working on a nice pair of fingerless gloves in a mustard yellow color, but I put them down to work out how to adapt the pattern to my small hands and haven’t picked them up yet again. I’m also working on an openwork sweater for my friend’s birthday next month.
I just finished a granny square blanket for a friend’s impending baby. No pics, though–didn’t think to take any before I gave it away. It was brown, green, and cream color, and I was sooo sick of looking at it by the time it was done.
I also am learning to knit–I’ve just got the basic knit/purl thing down and am eager to move on to a scarf or something.
And the thrill of starting ANOTHER project for the same rush when you find yourself slogging through it a Bataan Death March and deciding that some other simple project ( king size afghan) would be far more pleasant, so you chuck it aside and start something new.
Ooooooh, I love starting new projects.
I will say when I learned to cross stitch, my sewing vastly improved. You know how you can spot even ONE cross stitch that’s done backwards? I found I was too compulsive to let it go, and that extended to my sewing.
Oh my goodness, your bead embroidery is amazing!
I mainly cross stitch, and have a long armed cross stitch piece that I’ve been working on sporadically for the past two years. It’s a really cool traditional Icelandic mythical beasties design. I don’t have a photo uploaded of where I’m at now, but I’m still working on the blue background/frames. I’m just a lot further along than I was in that one WIP photo.
That is too cute! Once I get this knitting thing down well enough, I’ll definitely have to try it.
I just got to the point where I figured out knitting last night after several years of trying and failing miserably, so I’m practicing like mad with my cheap Super Saver yarn and some size 10 1/4 needles so I can get it down pat. Don’t have anything to show for it yet, as it looks really awful at 4 inches long and 7 inches across; the bottom inch or two looks awful, as I was still figuring out the knit/purl thing and I decided to try “switching back and forth” on a few rows and didn’t do it evenly. I now have “holes” in it, which I joke with Acid Lamp about them being “for the fish to swim through.”* I’m totally going to have to get some little plastic fish to sew on by the holes.
Other than that, I’m not doing much in the way of sewing or embroidery, as I’m trying to master this new knitting skill. Someday, though, I want to be able to knit some awesome tabi socks.
[sub]*I made up some BS about knitting being useful to fishermen and making nets last night, and somehow we ended up with this joke as a result. [/sub]
::lust:: I want one of those!
In addition to all of this, I did a little playing with clay on the wheel yesterday. It’s going to take me a while to get the hang of it and make cool stuff, but I think I’ve got a decent aptitude for making round objects on the wheel. It could be a very fun hobby, as I’ve discovered that I enjoy both making the stuff and shopping for the glazes.
I’m finally getting time to knit again, now that Jonah can crawl! He used to want to be held ALL THE TIME, which made it hard to knit… I just started on an Airy Scarf from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts (that is not my picture or my scarf, it’s one that I found randomly on teh intarwebs to show you what I’m working on!). I love that scarf – I’ve made a few of them for other people, and they’re fun and easy to knit, so I’m making one for myself in the loveliest peach-and-blue-and-green sherbet-y yarn.
Once the yarn arrives at my LYS, I’m going to start on Rowan’s "Bobby " sweater (4th picture down) for the baby – I hope I can finish it by the time cool weather arrives again, and that I size it right! I’m a loose woman (hey! only when it comes to knitting!) so I tend to have gauge problems… I made some baby hats before Jonah was born, and it’s possible they’ll fit him when he’s 3.
I’m a cross-stitcher, so I wasn’t really planning to contribute to this thread - I rarely feel crafty when stitching, simply because I’m just following someone else’s pattern. I like seeing the pattern show up on my thread, and I hate it terribly when I manage to misread it and do the wrong number of stitches (or worse, mix up colours), but “paint by numbers” does seem an accurate comment to me.
That said, what is “long-arm cross-stitch”? Is it more interesting or difficult than basic counted cross-stitch?
I’m working on a gift for my boyfriend. It’s a Philadelphia Eagles thing. I’d post a photo, but while he’s not a lurker here, he has access to all my photo sites, and I don’t want him to know about it. It’s coming along nicely, though I did screw up some colors at one point. Luckily not to the disastrous degree I did in my “Smokey Mountain Cats” piece that I’ve theoretically been working on for five or so years now.
After this, some Christmas ornaments and two crocheted baby blankets.
I’m selling the market bags. And the yoga bags too, for that matter.
Long arm cross stitch appears to be an “older” form of cross stitch in Europe than what we do now, and looks quite a bit like braided hair when done in lines. Here’s a closeup of an old Icelandic altar cloth that uses long armed cross stitch; it’s been worked in long armed cross stitch.
As a contrast, here’s a bad scan of some knotwork that I did in a mix of regular and long armed cross stitch a few years back. Although some spots are blurry, you can still see the difference in texture between the regular and long armed cross stitch in the piece; the long armed cross stitch gives the knot “movement” within the piece itself.
