31 August 2006

Two sleeves make a...

This morning, someone didn't want me to go to work:

That's Mocha the cat, doing her best to keep me at home to play with her. Her ingenious plan of lying in front of the door was foiled, however, as we have another door to the house and she got up to investigate when I walked towards it. I'm not sure why she did this, although she sometimes is especially meowy in the mornings. She had gotten plenty of attention the night before as I pet her and played with her while I stitched dutifully on the blue thing all evening.

In other news, at some point this week, two sleeves became....

...a sweater. Or at least the bottom half of the sweater. We will call this "the other blue thing" as it needs about 50 more rows of blue knitting to go, then a big band of black before it is close to done. No need to start the socks yet.


But I did start working on a new design yesterday! Of course, I should have been wrapping up the other ones, but that's another story. Let's jsut concentrate on the fact that I stitched all night on "blue thing number 1" with no frogging involved and that was very happy.

28 August 2006

Six shades of blue

I finished the frogging fixing! Hooray! Of course, when I went to stitch with the second color, I wasn't quite satisfied with how it went with the variegated thread. So began a long period of experimentation, and a close association with the DMC color card. What color thread was the appropriate darkness, appropriate contrasting blue, and yet did not clash with the alread stitched thread? We don't need to go into how much time has already been spent stitching, frogging and restitching the base color of this design. And to complicate factors, this thread needs to go with other colors in an all-solid version of the design (not yet stitched) and with beads that go in the design (already picked). This is one of the difficult parts of designing - working with a limited color palette. After probably two hours of test stitching, comparing colors in different light, I found one that I was satisfied with. Luckily, the stitching itself didn't take very long. Now I am onto the beading. Usually, I'd wait to do this at the end, but I wanted to make sure I liked how the colors went together; I do like the colors.

I have a confession to make. I went to a knitting conference market and bought stash:

Ok, I wasn't too bad. Just a travel bag for yarn, some fun stitch markers, a present for my sister (not pictured), dpns (I have none) and two skeins of sock yarn. Not just any sock yarn, though - sock yarn specially dyed in Texas A&M Maroon and White. Please note that I don't yet know how to knit socks, but the A&M yarn was not to be resisted. Keen observers may see the blue project partially obsuscured by the knitting stash, and so my have their interest peaked by the design teaser. Note that I continued to stitch, even though I bought new knitting supplies. I think this shows great fortitude on my part.

Also this weekend, I *gasp* worked on new designs! I actually put drafts of them in the computer! This is a major step in the right direction. We won't mention that the October online show is, well, in October and that September is starting to peek around the corner. We also won't mention that Nashville is just over five short months away. Make that five good months.

Finally, special kudos to my DH for completing this years Hotter N' Hell Hundred. He was one of several thousand bicyclers crazy enough to brave the heat in Wichita Falls, TX. It was in fact, the second HHH on record, getting up to 104F. What an amazing accomplishment! Remember to share the road!

23 August 2006

Feeling Froggy

Yes, I am being diligent and making some progress on my 10-stitch mistake. All of this has opened up some really important questions, though. For example: why does it take longer to remove stitches than it does to make stitches? Why does thread have a tendency to break when being taken out of fabric more than when being put into fabric? Why is there so much blue? (Oh, Baby Sampler for a boy - go figure). Some readers may be wondering why I'm carefully removing the thread instead of just ripping it out willy nilly and going forward with the restitching. Careful inspection of the picture may reveal that I did, in fact, use a variegated thread for this fiasco and don't want to buy too many skeins. Although I'm rethinking the plan already.

So after carefully unstitching and then restitching a whole length of thread, I rewarded myself with some other needlework:


Yes, I realize it is blue. I'm trying to work on some other charts for variety.

In other random news, I'm starting to train to do a 5K run this January. It is held at the same time as the city marathon, so if I start talking about doing the 5K at the marathon, I'm not confused about how long a marathon is, I'm wisely choosing to do a shorter course (at least this year). I've never been a big runner, so this is a pretty big step for me.

21 August 2006

Houston, we have a problem

Has this ever happened to you? When two things that are supposed to meet up don't?


Actually, the mistake was realized when the curvey section above didn't hit the box below after the correct number of stitches. These pictures were taken after corrective action was begun. Yes, that "bad" indicator is a gap of 10 stitches. Why are 10 stitches missing? Upon deeper investigation, I found that when doing the long vertical straight stitching on the left side of this design, I some how came up with a stitch count of 165 when there should only be 155 stitches.

Of course, had I just looked at my chart, I would've seen that the numbers on every 10 grid lines only went up to 160, so there was no way the whole thing could be 165. Anyway, a very silly mistake on my part. And since the whole border is stitched, there is nothing to do but frog the whole bottom bit (including a large motif in the bottom right-hand corner) and restitch it - 10 rows higher.

Please pass the knitting.

17 August 2006

Productivity

As proof that I did some of the work that I was supposed to do last night. Here is some of my test stitching. I'm still not entirely happy with the color combinations, so today I'm playing with them on the computer. Also, DH stole the lamp last night, so there was a limit to what I could do.

I also got a load of laundry done! Amazing!

Now back to my stitching story, since it appears that I have to write it myself. First, for posterity, here is a picture of the first major project I ever stitched. There are three major errors in this project. Do you see them?

1. I started stitching way too close to the top of the fabric. There's about 5 rows from the top of the stitching to the top of the fabric. Someday I'll finish this off as a bellpull, so it is really not that big of a deal. 2. The top plane has at least one incorrect color due to reading the chart wrong. Obviously I wasn't a perfectionist in middle school, so I didn't fix it. 3. I was still learning when I started stitching this, so there are a few (a very few) stitches where the top part of the stitch goes the wrong way. But you can't see that in this picture.

Here is the first original design I ever did. The lettering is taken from a book of alphabets, but I charted the constellations from an astronomy book. This won a prize at the state Latin Convention, but I can't remember if it placed at the National Convention.

Ok, stitch snobs, quick avert your eyes before looking at the following picture. Everyone else, just remember that I was probably in eigth grade when I did the following and didn't know any better.


On the other hand, it has held up remarkably well as a finishing job - there is absolutely no discoloration on the front of the piece in about 20 years of being held together with duct tape.

Needless to say, I don't use duct tape anymore. I still remember working on that first chart, though. I didn't have any graph paper small enough, so I took my regular 4 squares/inch paper and simply divided all the squares in half where the stiches would be.

Shortly after entering into high school, I started a crochet phase. This coincided with someone teaching me to crochet and a fascination with scarves. The fascination with scarves arose from watching way too much Doctor Who on PBS. I did attempt to teach myself to knit, but it didn't work out well, so I crocheted a 30 foot Doctor Who scarf. I came back to the cross-stitch fold when I happened to be looking through the pattern books in Michaels and found one full of space designs. It had Voyager and the planets, the moon and "The Eagle has Landed" with and eagle in front. It was very cool for cross-stitch patterns to an 11th grader. But it was different from everything else I has ever gotten before. It wasn't a kit. And so I learned to collect stash. I figured out how to buy DMC skeins, put them on bobbins and store them, how to buy fabric. Then I bought other patterns. I stitched a bunch of the patterns from that space book, and let me tell you, there is a lot of grey when you stitch the moon!

In college, I was lucky enough to find a friend who also liked cross stitch. Together we were luck enough to find a stitching store (my first LNS experience). Between this store and a Teresa Wentzler kit I was doing for a friend, I somehow crossed over from Aida to evenweave/linen fabrics. I also bought "The Castle" pattern by Teresa Wentzler, but remeber not liking the placement of one of the feet and wondering how hard it would be to change. I never got around to stitching it. I eventually designed several dragons while in college because there just weren't enough dragons to stitch.

Luckily, today there are far more dragons out there for people to stitch. And it is neat to see the variety of dragons that come out of people's imaginations. I really enjoy designing when the creativity comes, and sometimes it just comes, and sometimes it has to be coaxed. Even if I wasn't designing, I'd be stitching, or crafting in some way. So I say to everyone "Stitch on!"

16 August 2006

Houston, we have a design!

I think the baby design is really really close to done! Yay! This one has been in the "tinker" phase for about a year. Now, just to double check colors and such. Of course, I have to finish making a whole alphabet so that other people can customize it. I guess not everyone will want to stitch my nephew's name, although I can't imagine why. So tonight, if I'm really productive, I will test stitch the colors. I'm writing it here for everyone to see so that tomorrow I have to own up to whether or not I was productive or not. Of course, I can say that I got this design laid out last night and got some laundry done (all the way to being hung up). Oh, and went to the gym for 30 minutes. That's a pretty darn productive evening. No, I don't have kids, just the cat.

Anyway, goals for this evening: colors for baby sampler (most important), grid other design number 1 (I can't tell all my secrets), try to refrain from too much knitting, even though the second sleeve is getting close to halfway. Oh, wait - most important goal for the evening: feed myself and DH. I don't like going without food.

It is back to school time here in Texas, and in light of the recent graduation pictures, I thought I'd resume the trivia contest with some school-based trivia.

Question 19: What two universities did your favorite designer (ok, the designer who writes this blog) get degrees from?

Question 20: What are the mascots for those universities?

Question 21: Which was established first, Texas A&M or the University of Texas?

Question 22: Which UT is older?

Don't forget, questions 13-18 are still unanswered, though you may have to hunt for them!

14 August 2006

And a good time was had by all

With much Pomp and Circumstance, a new doctor was added to the family:


Don't ask for a perscription, its a Doctor of Philosophy in there.

And this is how long a Texas A&M Graduation is:


That's 5 inches of seed stitch for those counting at home, or just under three hours. Just for the record, I think this occasion took around four hours (and I wasn't able to knit or stitch). Afterwards, there was lovely food, also an interesting trip to the Galleria, where we searched for a store that kept moving mysteriously, and a baseball game (unfortunately the Astros lost). Sunday it was time to put everyone back on planes and look at retackling the laundy.

In stitching news, I did actually put the knitting down and make some progress on one design. Two more are drawn up, but need to go from drawing to graph paper. Where are those elves? They really are shirking a lot of work around here. Another is in early "computer work" stages, but looks really cool in my head. What will be done in time for the October Needlework show? Hmm... I'm starting to wonder myself. There is a month in between September and October, right? Guess that means I'd better stop blogging and get to work.

10 August 2006

Still waiting on the elves

Actually, I need some pictures for the rest of the story, which I keep meaning to take, so bear with me. All will resolve itself in time. And look, I am being betting at blogging!

The last couple of days have been mostly uneventful. I have been attempting to get ready for an "Invasion of the Relatives" which is now extremely imminent. Really, the relatives are terrific, and I love them, but their arrival does require a certain amount of cleaning in advance. I mean, who doesn't watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" and then think, "Uh-oh, my MIL is coming this weekend, what will she think of the *****" fill in your undone house duty here. Although I must say that my MIL is very easy going and we're not likely to be spending much time at the house examining the state of my kitchen floor. Although, come to think of it, I never did get around to cleaning the stove top - well nothing to be done about now except eat out! :) Just kidding.

Also, this lovely terrorist catching event this morning (and terrorist-catching is always better than terrorist-not-catching) has thrown things for a slight loop, as carryon items had to be double checked not to be liquidy and coordinating flights were delayed. But all will be well.

Please expect regularly scheduled blogging to reappear Monday - Tuesday at the latest.

And remind me to stitch and not knit, even though I'm very close to finishing a sleeve.

08 August 2006

What, no elves?

I see the elves did not come and finish my story yesterday, but I'll give them one more day because I have another story to tell. This story is not of any more importance, but it did happen more recently (today) and I feel compelled to tell it while it still amuses me.

While delivering patterns last Thursday during the LNS stitch-in, the LNS owner asked for more copies of Le Tour Septieme. Ok, I'll have those to you by Tuesday at the latest, I said, since I knew that Tuesday the LNS is open late (and it is closed on Sunday and Monday). I went on my merry way and didn't think much of it because I knew I had a bunch of these "bicycle" patterns in my inventory from an earlier print run. On Saturday, I got a follow up call from the same LNS owner wanting copies of "the cat pattern" - this would be the now famous Post Modern Cats. Ok, I say, I'll bring those on Tuesday as well. Now I'm nervous. I know I don't have any Po Mo Cats in inventory. I just finished printing up a bunch of them for a new distributor and shipped them off on Friday. (aside: Yay! New Distributor!) Why am I nervous? Because in doing said print run for new distributor, your intrepid designer started to get really low on (1) paper (2) yellow ink (3) cyan ink and (4) black ink. In fact, we are so low on black ink that the line on the printer is blinking constantly. Luckily, the printer will keep printing until it completely runs out of one color of ink. Then it will refuse to print until it has been topped off. So I'm nervous because I'd really like to print the Po Mo Cats for the LNS owner without incurring a rather expensive trip to Office Despot for more ink. This also means that I'm holding out in the paper department as well. Anyway, being me, I completely forgot to do my printing on Sunday, and yesterday saw Mr. Migraine cut out any fun activies for the evening. That means that the printing job now had to occur over lunch (1) because I do have to go to the day job and (2) in case I ran out of ink/paper, I would then have one last chance to run out for supplies. And so the scene is set.

I get home. I eat. (Who wants to face this kind of trauma on an empty stomach?) I scrounge up enough paper for the patterns (whew). First: The covers, because if anything, I'll run out of ink printing the covers. They use the most ink. I make it through the covers. (Are you feeling the suspense yet?) Then the back covers. Done. I start the print job on the patterns. I can't just sit there and watch the printer, so I go into the other room to stitch and watch TV. After a few minutes, I don't hear the printer going any more. Is this it? Have I run out of ink on the patterns themselves? No, just a paper jam. Clear it, keep going. Back to the other room to stitch. The printer gets quiet again. I check - out of ink? No, the paper has shifted and it thinks it is out of paper. Put the paper back in place. A miracle happens - the print run finishes with out running out of ink! I merrily go about collating the patterns and bagging them. Then I stitch for a couple more minutes before I have to go back to work. Finally, I think, better get those "bicylce patterns" together as well. I go to the inventory. I have half of what the LNS owner wanted! Oh no! I have to coax a few more patterns from the printer! Will the ink last? Nothing to do but try. Covers. Done. Backs. Made it. I'm really sweating now. All that's standing between me and sucess is a few pattern pages. Ok, print and go. Yay! The story does have a happy ending after all. The ink lasts. How many patterns do I think I can still print? Better not to press my luck. Now I have to hurry up, bag these and head back to work.

I just realized I left the order form at home - now I have to go there before going to the LNS. Good thing they are open late tonight!

07 August 2006

Difficulties

Do you know how difficult it is to achieve a state of relaxation while trying to rest your head on your desk (propped up by your arms) and not have your lower body roll out from under you (since the chair is on rollers)? And yet this is what I try to do in a vain attempt to thwart a migraine that has been dogging me all afternoon. Ok, then I gave up and blogged this because my arms were starting to complain about having to hold everything together.

The rest of the sewing/cross-stitching evolution story hopefully tomorrow. Unless little elves come in and write it for me tonight.

04 August 2006

In the beginning

Ok, so this isn't tomorrow, it is the day after that. What can I say? Sometimes life happens. Honestly, I do think about writing daily, but then I read other blogs, and the day just slips by. On the other hand, some days, I also get annoyed when there are no new entries in all the blogs I have bookmarked and the morning drags out (damn you Whil Wheaton, aren't you back from Vegas yet?). Also, there was much sadness this morning when I found out that You Knit What? is shutting down. I only just discovered it this week! And I've already read all the archives! Now, I will just have Stuff on my Cat to keep me amused on a daily basis (yes, the SomC daily calendar has already made it to my Amazon wish list).

Anyway, the story (or maybe just the beginning of the story as this is a Friday afternoon): In the beginning, there was handsewing. I don't really remember how old I was when my mother taught me to sew by hand, but this is when I learned the basics: how to thread a needle, knot the end of the thread, basic up and down stitching, how to sew on a button and a snap. We made clothes out of fabric scraps for my stuffed animals. I was not a doll-type girl, I was a stuffed-animal type girl. So my teddy bear got little shirts, pants and the like. Mom had lots of fabric scraps because she occasionally made clothes for herself and for my brother and I. She also made wonderful Halloween costumes for my brother and I.

So that was the beginning of the sewing. There were many other crafts in the house, as required for school projects and Girl Scouts. However, another critical juncture was probably the entry of plastic canvas into my world. I don't remember how or exactly when it happened, but it was probably sometime between 3rd and 5th grade. I do remember doing many bright projects, making magnets, and generally learning to follow a pattern. There was some accumulation of yarn and a kid's fishing-tackle box converted to a yarn box. From plastic canvas came a mystical progression to cross stitch. I think this was somehow due to proximity of the two craft in the aisle at Michael's. I would guess that this happened sometime in 6th or 7th grade. I don't remember my first project, but I remember my first really big kit. It was a long, bellpull like thing with a bunch of airplanes on it. I think I begged my Mom to get it so that I could do it for my brother, who was in college at the time. I remember working really hard on it, even working on it at school. I did start too close to the top, though. I did finish it in time for his college graduation, but it was never finished into anything. I think I still have it. I think I entered a slight stash aquisition phase at this time because I remember contemplating making bookcovers with cross stitch cloth. Come to think of it, I think I did do one with an embroidered candle in 8th grade, but it was muslin, not aida.

Coming next week: I design my first patterns, the crochet phase, and real stash acquisition begins.

01 August 2006

Art vs. Craft

A week or so ago, I found myself in the bookstore perusing the craft magazines, and given my new knitting obsession, I took a look at the knitting magazines which I hadn't done before. I noticed that several of them had patterns, or at least ads, for designs that were a bit on the avant garde side. Then I looked through the cross-stitch magazine, which were way in the back, and many of the designs seemed, well, cute, tired, old. "Is it just me?" I wondered. "Is it the medium?" What is it about knitting that has people trying new and exciting, artistic things? Is it the influences of the fashion industry? The haute coutre? Hmmm..... Like the grinch, I puzzled and puzzled until my puzzler was sore. I still don't know, but I'm bound and determined to stay my course and stay away from cute and tired. I think we have enough interesting fabric and fibers available to us as a stitching industry to make really cool design work, to make Art.

Of course the knitters have their problems, too. I found the site You Knit What? (see side link) that points out almost daily bad knitting patterns. Very funny. I've often wondered where would the cross-stitch industry be if we designers had to go through an American Idol audition process. Would that be a good way of winnowing away many startups with a computer and not much design talent who get store shelf space anyway? Or would heretics who push the envelope (like me) also be left out in the cold? Interesting to think about anyway.

Maybe tomorrow I'll tell the story of how I really got into cross-stitching. If I haven't done so already.